In this consideration of play in the public library sphere, Ilardi interweaves her story of forming a nonprofit with reflections on child development and design thinking research. Ilardi recounts her own background as a public youth librarian that led to her creating the nonprofit Simple Positive Play in the St. Louis, MO, area. She maps research on youth development (think Piaget, Dewey, and even Mr. Rogers), youth librarian history, participatory design, ALSC core competencies, and other scholarly frameworks onto the narrative of starting a new business. The earnest and wholesome tone conveys the writer’s personality. Readers can easily imagine these principles in action at a storytime, gaming club, or teen advisory group. Slim and storytelling-rich, this once insider, now outsider perspective gives youth librarians a theoretical and practical grounding in a fail-fast, open-minded methodology for working with youth and families in public libraries. The lessons learned in incorporating this approach in programming and partnering with school librarians are most useful for early career librarians. For more seasoned staff or librarian administrators, this book offers an introduction to or a reminder of the benefits of a collaborative community mindset.

Library Journal

Simply telling someone to start playing at their library can be overwhelming. In Simple Positive Play at the Library, Jennifer Ilardi breaks down how and why to support open-ended play in libraries by leveraging the power of community collaboration. With her advice you too can turn your library into a 'playground where young people can utilize what they know to explore their interests,' as Ilardi puts it.

Noah Lenstra, associate professor of Library & Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and founder of Let's Move in Libraries

Simple Positive Play at the Library is an approachable way of adopting the Simple Positive Play concept in a contextualized, active learning setting. Ilardi clearly illustrates the educational benefits of implementing the model, and offers experience-backed examples of how to work it in at your own institution. Her idea of using play to learn, is one that can, and should, be adopted at every library.

Andrea Gallagher Nalls, author of Come, Stay, Learn, Play: A Guide to Making the Museum Experience and director of experience and operations at the Tampa Bay History Center