Libraries and Librarians in the News

Reading and refuge
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Where it's unsafe to be outside, libraries provide haven for kids
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Chicago Tribune (IL)-July 6, 2010
Author: Lolly Bowean, Tribune reporter

It was a warm and sunny day outside, but Xavier Parker, 10, was deep into a computer game at Thurgood Marshall Public Library when his father walked in and told the boy he was about to go to a store.
"Stay in here," Xavier's father, Jimmy Giles, said, leaving the boy in charge of his 6- and 8-year-old brothers. "Don't go anywhere until I come back and get you."
Giles is a single father and he doesn't like his boys roaming their Englewood neighborhood or playing outside because it's not safe, he said. So nearly every day the boys walk to the library and sometimes stay there for hours.
"They love it here," he said. "They don't want to leave."