By Darcie Canfield-Riggs
Checked Out
We’re over halfway through May, which if you’re a parent like me, means you’re crossing many things off your to-do list: buying new swimsuits and summer clothes for your kids, getting thoughtful teacher appreciation gifts, making sure there’s sunscreen for field day, stocking the cupboards with all the snacks in preparation for those upcoming extra days at home, and gassing up the van to transport your children to their various practices, concerts, games, and end-of-school events.
If you’re a parent who also works at the public library, like me, you’re doing all of this in tandem with a long to-do list to prepare for Summer Reading: making promotional materials for all the events, scheduling performers and bouncy house rentals, assembling several cardboard dinosaurs, decorating the library, programming the Beanstack reading challenge and printing off paper reading logs, picking out prizes, preparing materials for crafts and storytimes—and so much more!
The Summer Reading Program is like another child for many of us at the library. We’re busy doing all those “other duties as assigned” work tasks … and it’s all because we love it and we want it to be successful, just like our kids. Last year, we had 1,280 children, teens, and adults sign up for the reading program. Success to us looks like growing numbers year after year, but it also looks like patrons taking our book recommendations and choosing books from our displays. It looks like kids running to the desk to let us know they saw Miss Amy & I perform a silly dinosaur skit at their school to promote reading this summer. It can look like all the sweaty children playing hard at our annual Summer Celebration that kicks off youth summer reading (join us on Friday, June 5). A successful summer reading program for us “library parents” looks like our community using the incredible resource that the library is.
This year’s Summer Reading theme is “Unearth a Story.” This theme was chosen by the Collaborative Summer Learning Program, a consortium of which we belong to in order to provide a cost-effective summer reading program in our community. “Unearth a Story” invites readers to dig deeper—into history, science, nature, family stories, and the world around them.
But why is Summer Reading important and why do we put so much effort into it? From birth to adulthood, the Summer Reading Program functions as a means to enrich our community, prevent children from regressing in their learning, and to bring families together, all while supporting their public library by checking out materials and frequenting our programs throughout the summer. Families can simply spend time together in a welcoming (and air conditioned) space without worrying about the cost. All ages can have fun immersing themselves in the theme with us—check out the huge papier-mâché T. rex at public services, find yourself in a cave of wonders with herds of dinos in youth services, and swing through the trees while getting your questions answered at the reference desk!
Our Summer Reading Program will be an experience. The library, full of stories, is itself a treasure to be uncovered in this community. Maybe you unearth what you’re looking for in a picture book, a mystery novel, or through conversations with your neighbors and friends after you meet up for storytime. Take it from this parent & library staff member– the best thing you can do for yourself and your family is to add “go to the library” to your summer to-do list!
Summer Reading at Hutchinson Public Library starts on Monday, June 1, and ends Friday, July 31. The Summer Celebration kickoff event for children is from 9 to 11:30 a.m. on Friday, June 5, in the parking lot. For more information about the reading program and upcoming events, visit hutchpl.org.
Darcie Canfield-Riggs is the youth services librarian at the Hutchinson Public Library. She can be reached at darcie.cr@hutchpl.org.