Report from Children's Services Manager Jodi Bird
Summer Reading:
What a great summer we had! Signups for Summer Reading were up slightly this summer, from 274-283, but what was up was attendance at the weekly events. In 2008 we averaged about 156 people at our programs each week. This year we averaged 194. Up significantly from last year. We held 7 different events this year with the most popular being Mad Science, Bill the Juggler, the Zoomobile and the Spoonman. Dairy Queen was nice enough to donate soft serve ice cream and Kwik Trip donated bananas so the kids we treated with banana splits at the last event. The library gave away 80 free books this summer. This is the final prize children can receive for the summer reading program. Participants must have read 21 hours to receive a free book. Last year 27 kids got free books.
Summer Story Times:
Our story times numbers were also significantly up this summer. We offered one story time per day on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for 8 weeks (24 different sessions). We saw a total of 808 people for an average of 34 people per session (children attend with a parent or caregiver). This was up from the 556 people we saw last summer.
Outreach:
This was our 4th summer of reading to the students who attend summer school at Oaklawn Elementary. Each week Colleen went to Oaklawn and read to over 200 students.
This was our second summer of participating in River Heights Elementary School’s grant for a summer reading program at their school. Two times a week Debbie went to River Heights and shared stories with a group of approximately 14 students for 30 minutes.
Also this summer Colleen and I continued to go to two different day cares, Hand in Hand Daycare and Bouncin Babies and Kool Kids, to share stories, songs and fingerplays. Once a month all year long we go to these daycares and share stories and other information about the library. This fall we will be going to three different daycares, Bouncin Babies, Monkey Business and Sunshine Learning Center.
Young Adult:
Colleen hosted many events for teens this summer. All events were held on Thursdays and were well attended. The most popular events were Yuck Night, Candy Making, Guitar Hero, and Water Games Night (even though this event was held on a cold summer evening). As of the writing of this report no final numbers have been acquired.
We look forward to planning our next summer reading event which will be titled
Make a Splash: READ.
