Greenburgh Public Library Blog

Make Way! Large Print Coming Through

Large print format has a strong legacy of supporting increased reading engagement and proficiency for adults, most notably those with visual challenges. Thorndike Press with Project Tomorrow® designed and implemented a nationwide Study to investigate the impact of large print-formatted books on student reading engagement and achievement levels. The Study found that large print can help develop reading skills. Large print  books look like their standard print counterparts but their insides are designed to increase readability. Characteristics of large print books include larger font size; enhanced spacing between letters, words, and sentences; clearer contrast between text and the background color of the page; and fewer words and lines per page within the books. This combination helps readers:

• Decode words: With fewer words per page, large print books make the process of visualizing information easier for striving readers. They can sound out the words more effectively.
• Improve tracking and fluency. Larger fonts and increased spacing force the eye to move more slowly to help a reader avoid skipping or rereading lines.
• Develop greater reading comprehension: Once decoding errors are eliminated and fluency improves, striving readers can focus on the meaning of the text more readily.

With this in mind, the Greenburgh Public Library's Children's Library has a special collection of large print juvenile books of classic and popular titles for our young readers easily at hand. Here is a link to our complete list of large print holdings and below are our top 10 large print picks!

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

My sweat is DRIZZLING. Stop all that quivering. Cuz tonight I'm delivering," announces dread-locked, 12-year old Josh. He and twin brother Jordan are awesome on the court. Josh has basketball in his blood, but he's got mad beats, too, that tell his family's story in verse.

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

 Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all. Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he's seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or the sound of leaves with color and a well-placed line. Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home -- and his own art -- through new eyes. When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it's up to Ivan to make it a change for the better.

 

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby for the witch in the forest to keep her from terrorizing their town. But Xan is kind. She nourishes the babies with starlight and delivers them to welcoming families. Until she accidentally feeds a baby moonlight, filling her with extraordinary magic that will emerge with dangerous consequences.

 

 

 

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

Through a series of poems, a young girl chronicles the life-changing year of 1975, when she, her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam and resettle in Alabama.

Merci Suárez Changes Gears by Meg Medina

Merci Suarez knew that sixth grade would be different, but she had no idea just how different. For starters, Merci has never been like the other kids at her private school in Florida, because she and her older brother, Roli, are scholarship students. They don't have a big house or a fancy boat, and they have to do extra community service to make up for their free tuition.

 

 

 

Wonder by R. J. Palacio

August Pullman was born with a facial deformity that, up until now, prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid-- but his classmates can't get past Auggie's extraordinary face. Wonder begins from Auggie's point of view, but soon many perspectives converge in a portrait of one community's struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance.

 

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Perhaps the most celebrated animal story of the 19th century, Black Beauty is the suspenseful and deeply moving account of a horse's experiences at the hands of many owners -- some, sensitive riders who treated him gently; others, cruel drivers who thoughtlessly inflicted lasting damage., written as the animal's autobiography, and as an appeal for the humane treatment of horses, this beloved classic reveals as much about human conduct as it does about animals.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

In vivid poems, Jacqueline Woodson shares what it was like to grow up as an African-American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, her poems are accessible and emotionally charged glimpses into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world.

 

 

 

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai; Patricia McCormick

Malala is an international symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner. In this Young Readers Edition of her bestselling memoir, which has been reimagined specifically for a younger audience and includes exclusive photos and material, we hear firsthand the remarkable story of a girl who knew from a young age that she wanted to change the world -- and did.

 

 

Hidden Figures (YRE) by Margot Lee Shetterly

 

The powerful story of African-American mathematicians Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, whose work in a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" forever changed the face of NASA and the country.