{"id":411080,"date":"2026-07-24T18:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T18:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411080\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T18:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T18:54:12","slug":"long-beach-library-faces-off-against-island-park-library-at-dino-games-herald-community-newspapers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411080\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Library faces off against Island Park Library at Dino Games | Herald Community Newspapers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Island Park Public Library transformed its parking lot into a prehistoric playground on July 11 as dozens of families from Island Park and Long Beach gathered for the second annual Dino Games, a collaborative summer event designed to keep children active, engaged and excited about reading.<\/p>\n

The free program, organized by the Island Park Public Library<\/a> and Long Beach Public Library, welcomed about 50 families for a morning of dinosaur-themed games, crafts and outdoor activities tied to this year\u2019s summer reading program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a really fun collaboration between the two towns and the two libraries,\u201d said Teresa McCarthy, head of youth services at the Island Park Public Library.<\/p>\n

The event began last summer after the Long Beach Public Library<\/a> approached Island Park about partnering on an outdoor children\u2019s program. While Long Beach offers many community programs, it lacks the outdoor space and parking lot available at the Island Park library, making the location an ideal gathering place for families from both communities.<\/p>\n

McCarthy and Alexandra Blau<\/a>, head of youth services at the Long Beach Public Library, coordinated the event, meeting in person and staying in regular contact to organize games, volunteers and supplies.<\/p>\n

Each library invited roughly 25 families to participate and recruited middle and high school student volunteers to help run the activities.<\/p>\n

Children rotated through a series of dinosaur-themed<\/a> challenges, including Feed the T-Rex, a cornhole-style game; Dinosaur Ring Toss; Dinosaur Dig; Hungry Hungry Dinosaur, where teams raced to collect pom-poms with dinosaur grabbers; Don\u2019t Break the Dino Egg, a spoon-and-egg relay; and a Dinosaur Scooter Race. Families also enjoyed tie-dye and sand art stations, with the sand art created in dinosaur-shaped containers, along with sidewalk chalk, hula hoops and other outdoor games.<\/p>\n

Beyond providing free summer entertainment, McCarthy said the event highlights the library\u2019s role as a community gathering place.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies are always looking for entertainment,\u201d she said. \u201cWe provide a lot of resources beyond books, and collaboration and camaraderie are part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program also supports the libraries\u2019 shared goal of promoting summer reading. McCarthy said events like Dino Games often inspire children to browse the shelves before heading home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want families to know that the library is a fun, safe place,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s why we\u2019re here. We encourage everybody to participate, and then, of course, we hope they stay and take home some books too. It\u2019s so nice to see everyone get excited about reading as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

By combining outdoor fun with literacy, the two libraries hope the annual event continues to grow while strengthening connections between neighboring communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Island Park Public Library transformed its parking lot into a prehistoric playground on July 11 as dozens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[164649,126897,8382,131,133,132,4694],"class_list":["post-411080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-dino-games","tag-island-park","tag-library-events","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}