Five-year-old Owen Aube (right) and his grandfather Randy Waldron present Head of Children’s and Teen Services Jacob Fehr with a donation to be used to purchase approximately 100 dinosaur-themed books for the Grande Prairie Public Library (Photo supplied by GPPL)

By Shaun Penner

Dinosaur-themed books

Youth’s love of dinosaurs leads to book donation to Grande Prairie Public Library

Apr 19, 2021 | 11:31 AM

The Grande Prairie Public Library will be adding about 100 additional dinosaur-themed books to its collection, thanks to a donation from a young dinosaur enthusiast and his grandfather.

The donation was the idea of five-year-old library user Owen Aube, who after hearing that his grandfather, Randy Waldron, was interested in making a charitable donation, he suggested the money should go to the library to purchase more dinosaur books.

Library Director Deb Cryderman says Aube suggested such a donation because, quite simply, the library didn’t have enough dinosaur-themed books for him.

“We agree that there can never be too many dinosaur books in a library,” said Cryderman. “(Aube) has been very decisive about what he loves and we’re happy to purchase additional dinosaur books with his grandfather’s donation.”

Head of Children’s and Teen Services at the library Jacob Fehr says the offer for the donation caught him by surprise, as he had not previously been introduced to Aube or Waldron, who reached out to the library about one week ago with the offer.

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Fehr and Aube check out the dinosaur collection at the library (Photo supplied by GPPL)

Fehr commends Aube’s generous offer and thought, adding “honestly, I would love it if all the five-year-olds in town were advocating for us that fiercely.”

He adds that he would also love to see library users of all ages bring forward similar suggestions to library staff.

“We would be happy if people just engaged with us and said ‘you know, it would be nice if you amped up the dinosaur books in your collection,” said Fehr. “I mean, we keep an eye on things, but when patrons tell us ‘hey, you could use a little more in this section’, we would be happy to oblige.”

In 2020, Fehr says the library purchased 17 dinosaur-themed books for their Children’s collections, with this donation helping to bring in approximately 100 more.

“We’ll be buying books for our picture book collection, the easy non-fiction collection and the juvenile non-fiction collection,” said Fehr. “So there will be a good mix of information books for all ages of children, and storybooks about dinosaurs as well.

Fehr adds he looks forward to seeing Aube back at the library in the near future to borrow each and every one of the new dinosaur books they order thanks to him and his grandfather’s donation.