Where in Baltimore can you sit comfortably beside a pool lined with colorful tiles and watch a playful school of goldfish swirl happily in circles? And even if you are alone, you’ll have a companion—Perna Krick’s Young Siren. It’s a startling sculpture of a mer-child riding an art deco angel fish and curling her tail in delight. 
Nearby, you can sip water from a ceramic fountain decorated with two angelic musicians, who stand in magical garden with two attentive bunnies and a bird as their only audience.
This isn’t a fairy tale or a scary movie or a theme park—it’s the Children’s Room at the Central Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. The room is just down a flight or two of stairs from the grand entry hall that’s always bustling with life-sized chess figures or families creating art projects or the whir of computers sorting information on an endless list of topics. Whatever interests brought people here, they are connecting, not just with the books or the internet, but with each other and their community.
The Saturday I visited the Enoch Pratt, the grand hall was filled with children and parents celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Coretta Scott King Awards. The awards honor African-American authors and illustrators who create children’s books that foster the ideals of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Free is the Pratt’s middle name—so the weeklong activities and events in celebration of the King Awards were free. The family programming used art workshops and performances to connect visitors to recent books that have won a King Award.
Children at the Pratt were reading an illustrated book that calls for an
appreciation of the variety of African-American skin tones, The Blacker the Berry by Joyce Carol Thomas with illustrations by Floyd Cooper. It opens with the proclamation: “Colors, without black, couldn’t sparkle quite so bright.” I had just missed Cooper, who spent an hour signing books and chatting with admirers. Imagine a child’s memory of meeting such a famous illustrator!
During one event, I saw a young boy peering into a mirror to look intensely at his own image. He was drawing his own portrait, complete with distinctive arched eyebrows, when I overheard his mother answer him, “Yes, when you make this, they let you take it home.” (Just like the books!)
Just downstairs, in the Children’s Room, you could see a man re-enacting the harrowing journey of Henry “Box” Brown, who in the 19th century shipped himself in a wooden box 350 miles, from Virginia to Pennsylvania, to escape slavery.
The Pratt is definitely not your grandmother’s library—no one says “shush”! Perhaps that’s one reason why more than 1.7 million people visited the Pratt so far this year. If you’re planning a trip soon, keep in mind:
- The Central Branch is open every day.
- The Holiday Open House and the Winter Break Fun Day are just a few weeks away.
- And that mer-child, a truly enchanting companion for old and young alike, is waiting.
Filed in: Enoch Pratt Free Library.
Doreen Bolger is always on the move because she can’t stop seeing, supporting, and writing about the arts in and around Baltimore City. Her lengthy love affair for the arts began in Long Island when her father, an executive in the textile industry, brought home breathtaking fabrics every night from the heart of the garment district. 
Doreen,
Thanks for the blog about The Enoch Pratt FREE.
Looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday evening at our Board Meeting excursion to the BMA!
Nancy