Through no fault of its own, Woodview Park Library resides in a shabby strip plaza near the intersection of Sheppard Avenue and Weston Road. Even though the branch lacks actual views of woods or parks, sunbaths from the storefront windows compensates for the spartan interior.
2016
The teen nook offers a welcoming bench and some Beatles-inspired artwork, creating an ideal corner to read a magazine or graphic novel in the sun.
A smaller table on the opposite end of the single-room branch signals the start of the children’s section. On the table, a large container of crayons invites creativity into the library. The east wall contains the the brightest decorations at Woodview Park. Adhering to this wall are the same wooden cut-outs in the shape of joyful kids that Black Creek Library has.
Below the cheerful artwork, low-budget yet inventive taped objects offer visual clues to various categories of books, such as toothbrushes for the Human Body, a tiara and wand for Fairy Tales, foam planets for Astronomy, a shuttlecock and assorted erasers for Sports, and a heraldic shield for Medieval Times.
Woodview Park offers plenty of ESL, Italian, Spanish, and Vietnamese resources as well as volumes in the language of Romance. (Two titles I liked were Cattle Baron: Nanny Needed and Hired: Cinderella Chef).
When I left the library on my 2014 visit, I didn’t feel the wistful ennui of a woman being presented with a butterfly she doesn’t want. The sunny bustle of Woodview Park had turned a dreary winter Saturday morning into a cheerful one.