Children’s Services

At the Gretna Public Library, we strive to provide services for children that entertain and educate through joyful play and a love of books. If you have any questions, please contact the Children’s Library at 402-502-9088.

Library cards are never required to attend a library event or participate in a library program.

Programming & Events

1000 Books Before Kindergarten

1000 Books Before Kindergarten is a country-wide initiative to encourage parents to read with their children ages 0-5 as one of the best ways to prepare kids for school.

You’ll receive a logging sheet with 100 circles. Color in a circle for every book that you read with your child. When you’ve filled in all the circles on a logging sheet, bring it to the Children’s Library to receive both a prize and the next sheet!

All of them! A thousand books is not as many as you’d think. If you read just one book a day, it will take less than three years to complete. At three books a day, less than a year. Don’t forget to include:

· Books you’ve read before. Count them every time!
· Books read by other caregivers, at school or storytime, on the go, etc.

No! As with all our programs, you don’t have to have a library card to participate.

There are so many ways that kids benefit from being read to.

· A larger vocabulary
· Wider background knowledge
· A love of reading for pleasure
· A stronger child/caregiver bond
· Listening skills
· Phonetic, narrative, and sequencing skills critical to language arts and math later in school

It’s easy! Stop by either library and ask the librarian for the first logging sheet. We’ll also add your child’s name to the display in the Children’s Library.

Reading Dragons & Friends

See your own creature on real Reading Dragon cards!

We’ll be choosing one dragon or griffin created by a Gretna Reading Dragons & Friends collector to be an official card in the 2026-2027 season! All creations must be submitted to either library by July 31, 2026 to be considered. Pick up a coloring page from either library or download and print.

Download Coloring Pages

Trackers for the 2026-2027 Reading Dragons season will be available in mid-July. You can continue to read and work backward through your 2026-2027 tracker to earn cards through July. Come by either library to pick up your spoils!

Reading Dragons & Friends is an incentive program created by librarians at the Dover Public Library (OH) that uses the card-collecting model to encourage kids in Grades K-8 to read.

Participants will receive a paper tracker. Each day they read for any amount of time, they can mark off a square. (They are welcome to create their own daily reading goal.) After reading four days, they have earned a family of cards and can pick them up at either library.

There are a couple games that you can play with the cards, one resembling Rock, Paper, Scissors, and the other like War. Your tracker will include instructions on how to play the games.

You can join us on the 3rd Friday of every month to play with other Reading Dragons collectors and sometimes even tournaments! Check the library calendar to see our next Reading Dragons event. Some events will include unique cards only available at the event!

Feel free to read extra days to catch up with creatures from past months. You can claim creatures from any month up to and including the month we’re currently in.

No! As with all our programs, you don’t have to have a library card to participate.

It’s easy! Stop by either library and ask a librarian to sign up. They’ll giving you a tracker and three starter cards to start your deck!

Start reading and tracking! Whenever you’re ready to visit the library, just come in and we’ll sign you up and give you any cards you’ve earned PLUS the starter cards!

Book Clubs

Eight blue, yellow, orange, and green cartoon books stacked atop each other.

Read and have fun with other enthusiastic readers!

Our Book Clubs for kids are designed to highlight great books and engage readers with fun activities and opportunities to make new friends. You can find out what we’re reading by clicking the button below!

Find Out More