The Leather Apron Club: Benjamin Franklin, His Son Billy & America’s First Circulating Library

A powerful celebration of libraries from master storyteller Jane Yolen. Benjamin Franklin introduces his son Billy to the Leather Apron Club, where it’s love at first page.

When Billy’s father Benjamin Franklin announces that Billy and his lazy cousin James will soon have a tutor, Billy is initially dismayed. But his tutor awakens him to the power of story and books, and when Billy accompanies his father to the Leather Apron Club (which Franklin started in 1727), he decides to do more with his education and life.

Best-selling author Jane Yolen introduces readers to the Leather Apron Club. Not only was the Club the first successful lending library in the United States–it also exists to this day as the Library Company of Philadelphia! Careful readers will notice that the story cleverly incorporates famous sayings from Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack, underscoring the lasting impact of words.