Youth Services

About the Youth Services Department

The Youth Services Department focuses on programming and collections for patrons from birth to eighth grade. As a certified Family Place Library™, RHPL youth librarians are specially trained to offer support to parents of young children and provide specialized programs designed to encourage early literacy skills. RHPL librarians can help you and your school-aged child with book recommendations, database and other homework help demonstrations, resource sharing, and year-round programming and events designed to engage kids of all ages.

Ask a Youth Librarian

Suggest a Purchase

Youth Online Resources

Not sure what to read for storytime? Take a look at our librarian curated reading lists.

2025 5th Grade Battle of the Books

A reading competition for all 5th graders in the greater Rochester community-12 Books, 5 months, 1 epic battle!

Battle of the Books Kickoff Video

Kids' Catalog Beta Testing

RHPL is developing a kid-friendly catalog that searches for material found in the youth room only. Try it out yourself and leave us feedback on our Kid's Catalog Survey. Thank you for helping us improve our services.

Visit our Kids' Catalog

Take our Survey

Bright By Text

Bright by Text is a program that provides information on child development and local resources to parents and caregivers of children prenatal to age 8. Available in English and Spanish, Bright by Text sends text messages right to your cell phone.
Text FAMILYPLACE to 274448 to sign up.

Learn More about Bright By Text