Introduction

Many teachers create a lending library for families in their classroom. A lending library is a collection of books that the teacher has gathered and is willing to loan out to families. The books that are included should be developmentally and age appropriate for the children, colorful, exciting and address the issues and concerns of the families. It is important to have books that discuss disabilities in a wide variety of ways. For example, a teacher needs to include books that address disability as part of diversity (see Section One), and books that support disability awareness (see Section Two). Books in a lending library can be slightly longer than books intended to be read in a classroom. This is because lending library books are intended for families to use at home one-to-one with their child/ren.

There are two main purposes of this section. The first purpose is to help teachers create a lending library of books for the families of the children in their classroom. The second purpose is to help teachers learn how to evaluate books for their library, specifically, books dealing with disabilities.

There are three parts to this section:

• Tips for teachers on creating a lending library
  
  
• Information to give families on a lending library
  
  
• Selecting books for your lending library. (See a list of recommended books)