The Maze Coloring Page

About this page

Time to put those library skills to the test. In this interactive maze, Curious Bunny must wind her way through twisting bookshelves to reach the Golden Book, and your child holds the crayon that guides her. Mazes are more than fun here, they mirror what searching for the right source really feels like, full of dead ends, backtracking, and the sweet moment when the path finally opens. Wrong turns are not mistakes, they are information. It is a fitting challenge near the close of the Library of Leaves chapter, where searching becomes second nature.

The research skill

This maze of bookshelves, with Curious Bunny at the start and a glowing golden book at the finish, practices search strategy: trying a path, noticing a dead end, backing up, and trying another. Researchers search this way when a keyword or shelf turns up nothing, and they learn to remember which paths already failed. It fits Chapter 2's focus on finding what is known, which rarely works on the first try. In school, this becomes rereading a passage for an answer or searching a library catalog.

Try it at home

Hide a special book somewhere in your home as the "golden book." Give your child three clues, one at a time, such as "It is somewhere soft," "It is in a room with a window," and "It is under something." After each clue, your child searches and says out loud which places they have ruled out. Keep a list of the dead ends together. When the book turns up, look back at the list and talk about which clue helped the most, and which places they would skip next time.

Talk about it while you color

• What do you think is written inside the Golden Book?
• When you hit a dead end in the maze, how did you decide where to try next?
• If your bookshelf at home were a maze, what treasure would be hiding at the end?