Café Oscar

Food for Thought

At this bustling café and ice cream shop, busy waitstaff prepare sandwiches and sundaes behind the counter, while baristas take orders and steam espressos at the coffee maker.

KidStreet's central hub, Café Oscar is a cozy place to read a book from the book lending library. The café stage provides customers with open mike entertainment. Kids in the café use their imaginations to play the roles of wait staff, customers, or performers during open mike.

For young children ages 2-3, breaking down roles into a series of appropriate actions and steps, such as making a sandwich, is a major accomplishment! It shows their growing complexity of cognitive skills. For older children ages 4-12, it is a way to explore their sense of who they are and who they might become.

Learn more about these topics through the books below. Many of these books are at the Brookings Public Library.

Ages 0-3 The Berenstein Bears Go In and Out, Stan Berenstain & Jan Berenstain Yum! Flip a Shape, Sami Ages 3-6 Froggy Eats Out, Jonathan London & Frank Remkiewicz In Enzo's Splendid Gardens, Patricia Polacco The Paper Crane, Molly Bang Ages 6-8 Dim Sum for Everyone!, Grace Lin Weird Stories from the Lonesome Café, Judy Cox & Diane Kidd Ages 9-12 Scraps of Time Series, "Abby Takes a Stand", Pat McKissack & Gordon James Hope Was Here, Joan Bauer The Van Gogh Café, Cynthia Rylant Poems for Young People Series, "Robert Frost", Gary Schmidt & Henry Sorensen

*At the time of writing, these books were not found at the Brookings Library.