Najla Al Owais and Noora Anwahi here.
Housed in the picturesque Al Hosn square, the Abu Dhabi Children’s library (by the Cultural Foundation) spreads over three sprawling floors with 5,250 square meters, where each floor includes immersive spaces designed with the UAE’s diverse nature and culture in mind.
Opened in September of 2019, the library was created with the idea of a children’s pop-up book as an inspiration, the library includes various spaces: The Falaj (Arabic name for a small stream), where a stream made up of books goes along a twisted path with wooden tree houses that serve as reading nooks and activity rooms; the Dunes where life sized soft dunes offer children and their families a space to climb, and play, with real life-sized camels and a land rover. Children can read stretched out on the dunes or listen to stories in this beautiful landscape.
The library is designed to be immersive and interactive to encourage exploration, as the decorative features in the children’s library are designed to be used and interacted with rather than for sole aesthetic purposes.
There are many elements that reflect the specific diverse cultural environment of the UAE, such as off-road vehicles, camel sculptures, and dunes (the soft play reading area). There are sensory tree houses that library visitors can make use of, and where children can listen to stories being read aloud to them. Inside the treehouses, there are accessible buttons for children, where they can push these buttons to change the hue of the lights and another button that begins narrating a story.
We also liked this wall mounted with fictional characters represented along with an inspirational quote by Dr. Seuss translated into Arabic. This is what it says in English: “You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.”
The Book Mountain, another space in the library, is a large auditorium with steps of varying sizes for the children to sit and read, listen to readings, sketch and draw or play. There is also a toddler’s area that is filled with early childhood activities for parents and their young ones to enjoy.
Creature space is where children can view real and imaginary creatures, and learn more about nature, and the environment. The creature area exhibits glass terrariums with living arthropods and reptiles, and drawers with taxidermized butterflies and other interesting animals.
Another space is the Art workshop that is a 300 square meter space for budding artists, and where regular art workshops take place. There are various types of learning and workshops that happen in the studio space where children are exposed to coding, learning new apps, filming, recording a pod cast and other similar activities.
Throughout the library are several types of cozy reading nooks for children to read and relax by themselves or with their families. A daily and monthly program of the children’s library can be viewed online, as well as through their Instagram account page. The children’s library also extends to the virtual world where you can gain access to electronic children’s books through their online library or watch bite sized videos of their interactive programmes and activities (see here).
The SURE+ (Summer Undergraduate Research Experience) team visited the children’s library as part of our library visits throughout the UAE to review outstanding picturebook titles coming from the region that are connected to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (see our #UAEReads post here and our upcoming Part 2 post here).
More about the library can be found in these links:
Abu Dhabi’ Children’s Library Website
Qasr Al Hosn (adjacent to the library).
Most of the photos shared here were taken during the SURE Plus visit the summer of 2023.
Every Saturday, we are doing a highlight on the libraries around the UAE. Just in case you missed it, here is our #UAEReads post on the House of Wisdom in Sharjah featured by Eqlima Ali Dinar and Najla Al Owais, a #UAEReads post on the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library in Dubai featured by Eqlima Ali Dinar, and a #UAEReads post on the Al Safa Art and Design Library in Dubai by Eqlima Ali Dinar just earlier today.
About the Guest Contributor for #UAEReads:
Najla Al Owais is a PhD candidate studying Math Education at UAEU. She has previously worked as a middle school mathematics teacher, and a freelance translator and interpreter. She is passionate about teaching mathematics, and is an avid reader, and loves finding the intersection between both mathematics and reading. She has a Bachelor’s of Science from Zayed University in Math Education and Masters of Arts from the American University of Sharjah in English-Arabic-English Translating and Interpreting. Wherever she goes, books find her. She hopes to one day publish her own book.
Noora Anwahi is an undergraduate student at UAEU majoring in Special
Education with a concentration on Mild and Moderate disabilities and is a part-time SURE+ research assistant. She was born and raised in Dubai, UAE. As an educator, she aims to create learning experiences that allow her students to grow a life-long enthusiasm for learning.
About the Guest Editor/Curator for March 2024 [#UAEReads]:
Myra Garces-Bacsal has served as a teacher educator for 15 years and has led several research projects on reading and social emotional learning, diverse picturebooks and teacher practices, psychology of high creatives and exceptional people, culturally responsive and inclusive education. She is a quintessential lover and creator of booklists (see her Social and Emotional Learning bookshelf here and other publications below). Myra serves as the Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies with the College of Education, UAE University. She is a self-proclaimed nerd who lives and breathes books and enjoys organizing events and festivals where fellow nerds converge and attempt to joyfully change the world.
Publications on booklists:
Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Tupas, R. (2023). A diverse social and emotional learning booklist for gifted learners and advanced readers. Roeper Review, 45(1), 25-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783193.2022.2145397
Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Al Ghufli, H. T., AlOwais, N. M., Baja, E. S., & Tupas, R. (2022). Using diverse picturebooks for inclusive practices and transformative pedagogies. In M. Efstratopoulou (Ed.), Rethinking Inclusion and Transformation in Special Education (pp. 72-92). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-4680-5.ch005
Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2021). Of grit and gumption, sass and verve: What gifted students can learn from multicultural picture book biographies. In S. R. Smith’s Handbook of giftedness and talent development in Australasian Pacific (pp. 431-453). Singapore: Springer International Handbooks of Education. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-13-3041-4_18
Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2020). Diverse books for diverse children: Building an early childhood diverse booklist for social and emotional learning. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 22(1), 66-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798420901856
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 
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