Our Goal

Here at childrensroom we want to help parents find the best books, video, audio, software, and toys for their children. We offer independent, expert, critical advice that focuses on the quality of the books, media, and toys we recommend, not on their popularity or novelty. We believe that the books, entertainment, and toys children are exposed to can make a difference in the development of their character, intellect, and aesthetic sensibility; consequently, we want to help parents by providing advice that they can trust, advice that will identify the best from among the thousands of books, videos, recordings, and toys marketed for children.

Who We Are

In order to offer independent, trustworthy guidance to parents, childrensroom editors and reviewers are children's librarians, teachers, and parents with years of experience and deep expertise in children's literature, media, software, and toys.

Some of the people behind childrensroom are:

Dolores Vogliano graduated from Columbia University Library School with a masters in library science, worked at various New York Public Libraries in the Bronx and Manhattan including running the childrens room at the Yorkville, Manhattan branch for 27 years. She continued in the NYPL administration as the Supervising Children's Specialist, Manhattan Borough office until 1998 when she retired. She has edited books for the NYPL including Reference Books for Children's Collections 1988-first edition, 1991-second edition and 1996-third edition. Shae has appeared on national television and radio for the NYPL and is a member of the American Library Association, New York Library Association, New York Library Club and Phi Beta Kappa.

Ernest Vogliano Founder, Editor-in-Chief
Ernest has over 12 years experience in publishing. Created, from startup, Aspen Aces & Eights magazine. Art directed at Life magazine, Time magazine, Fitness magazine, Hamptons magazine, FamilyPC. Owns and is the creative director of Monster Productions Inc. a graphic design and publishing company.

Lauren Mayer, Managing Editor
Lauren Mayer has over 15 years of experience as a Children’s Librarian, both in public and school libraries, and as a children’s bookseller. Before becoming a librarian, she earned an undergraduate degree in Biology and Music from UC San Diego. Having worked as a Bookseller and Assistant Manager at Waldenbooks throughout high school and college, she became the Manager of two Waldenbooks stores in Southern California before entering the graduate Library program at UCLA in 1987. At UCLA, she interned at the University Elementary School Library, where she developed software that recommended children’s books, and at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, determining the provenance of early printed materials. Upon graduating with honors from UCLA with a Master’s in Library Science with a Specialization in Children’s Librarianship, she was recruited by The New York Public Library. Her experience as a Children’s Librarian at NYPL was varied - she managed Children’s Rooms in neighborhood branches on Staten Island and in East Harlem, and she worked in the pilot phase of the innovative outreach program, CLASP - the Connecting Libraries and Schools Project. She went on to supervise CLASP outreach in two school districts in New York City. At NYPL, she was a featured storyteller in the training seminar for Children’s Librarians and in the Library’s summer storytelling programs in Central Park. She was also a member of the Library’s recruitment team, traveling to library schools across the country to recruit new librarians.

During her tenure at NYPL, she contributed to many of the Library’s publications, including Reference Books for Children’s Collections (1991 and 1996, Dolores Vogliano, editor), Libros en Español para los Pequeños (1990 and 1993, Yolanda Bonitch, editor), and she served as a member of the Advisory Board for The New York Public Library Kid’s Guide to Research by Deborah Heiligman (Scholastic, 1998). Additional published work by Lauren includes book reviews for School Library Journal, and the articles on Beverly Cleary, Madeleine L’Engle, L.M. Montgomery, and Laura Ingalls Wilder in Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia. She has been actively involved in professional organizations, including the American Library Association (ALA), the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), and REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library Services to the Spanish Speaking. She was a founder and two-term member of the ALSC/REFORMA joint committee that administers the Pura Belpré Children’s Book Award, which honors Latino authors and illustrators whose works for children best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience. In 1998 she became the Elementary School Librarian at The Berkeley Carroll School, an independent school in Brooklyn, and she is currently a school librarian at The Family Academy, an innovative model public school in Harlem, serving over 900 students in grades Pre-K through 8.

Stephen DelVecchio, Contributing Editor
Stephen Del Vecchio has over 20 years of experience in children’s librarianship and education. After earning his degree in History from Yale University in 1981, he spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Fiji, teaching high school mathematics and biology and starting, with four other PCVs, a model summer school program in computer science, mathematics, and critical thinking. Upon returning from overseas, he completed graduate coursework in education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and taught Kindergarten at the Bay Community School in Brookhaven, NY. Moving to New York City in 1985, he began library school at Columbia University and worked as a reference intern at the Columbia University Science and Engineering Libraries. In 1986, he was recruited by The New York Public Library to train as a Children’s Librarian. When he received his Masters in Library Service with honors from Columbia in 1987, he was also awarded the Joseph Lewis Wheeler and Joseph Towne Wheeler Award, an annual cash award to the MS candidate who demonstrates outstanding intellectual achievement and strong potential for leadership in library service. He continued his career as a Children’s Librarian with NYPL, working in several children’s rooms throughout New York City, and managing for 3 years the children’s room in East Harlem’s Aguilar Branch Library. He was a contributor to two editions of the NYPL publication, Libros en Español para los Pequeños (1990 and 1993, Yolanda Bonitch, editor). In 1990 he was appointed the founding project director for CLASP - the Connecting Libraries and Schools Project, a multi-million dollar outreach program that promoted reading and public library use in neighborhood schools and is now a fully publicly funded program that operates throughout New York City. While at NYPL he was a featured storyteller in the Library’s summer storytelling programs in Central Park. He was also a member of NYPL’s recruitment team, traveling to library schools and professional conferences throughout the country recruiting new librarians.

In 1993, he became a school librarian, creating a new library for an innovative model public school in Harlem, The Family Academy. He has seen the school grow from a K-2 program with 200 students, to a Pre-K through 8th grade program with over 900 students. In addition to building the library from the ground up, he has developed other innovative programs, including a model author residency with The National Book Foundation. Through this model program, he has worked closely with many well-known authors and illustrators, including Ashley Bryan, Carolyn Coman, Pat Cummings, Tom Feelings, Nikki Giovanni, Walter Dean Myers, Christopher Myers, Katherine Paterson, Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith, and Joyce Carol Thomas. One outgrowth of this work was that The National Book Foundation contracted him to write a Handbook on Author Residency programs. He has been an invited speaker at regional and national professional conferences, giving presentations on public and school library cooperation, reference materials for children and young adults in print and digital formats, and author residencies. Most recently he and author Carolyn Coman offered a program on author residencies at the November 1999 American Association of School Librarians (AASL) National Conference in Birmingham, Alabama. In addition to reviewing children’s books and reference materials for School Library Journal (SLJ), he has published several feature articles in professional journals: “Connecting Libraries and Schools with CLASP”, Wilson Library Bulletin, (September 1993, pp 38-40); “Out for a Spin: A School Librarian Test Drives 14 CD-ROM Encyclopedias” (SLJ Sept. 1997, pp 118-124); and “The New World: A Librarian’s Guide to CD-ROM and Print Atlases” (SLJ May 1998, pp 38-49, cover article). Both of the School Library Journal articles were selected to be on SLJ’s premier website (www.slj.com) in the “Most Wanted” section where most requested articles are featured and are still available in SLJ Online’s feature article archive. He is a contributing writer at Teacher Magazine, writing monthly reviews of noteworthy books for young people. He is a member of the American Library Association, the Association for Library Service to Children, and AASL.

Joy Fleishhacker, Contributing Editor
Joy has worked as a children's librarian, reviewer, and editor for the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, the Brooklyn Children's Museum, The New York Public Library, Kirkus, School Library Journal, and the Junior Literary Guild.

Carrie Schadle, Contributing Editor
After graduating from high school in Pittsburgh, PA and spending a year as an exchange student in Switzerland, Carrie Schadle graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College in 1990. In 1992 she began working at the Aguilar Branch of the New York Public Library in East Harlem. She earned a Master's Degree with honors in Library Science from Pratt Institute. In 1997 she became senior children's librarian at the historic Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library. While working for NYPL she served on numerous selection committees, including the prestigous and influential 100 Best Books for Reading and Sharing list published every November. Last year she left the public library to work at an alternative public school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she has had the opportunity to to start up a brand new library. She is an active member of the American Library Association and currently the chairperson of the Association for Library Service to Children's membership committee.

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childrensroom.com is dedicated to providing the highest quality reviews and recommendations of children's books, children's software, children's movies, children's audio recordings, children's reference books and children's reference software. The children's book reviews, children's software reviews, children's audio reviews, children's movie reviews, children's video reviews, children's reference book reviews, children's reference software reviews and editorial content are written by children's librarians, children's educators and specialists in the education if children from infancy through high school.

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