Her seasonal job in overseeing the summer reading program at the Morden Library is a rewarding one for Abby Storey.
Serving as the branch’s summer programmer is also a full circle moment for Storey, who benefited from the initiative when she was young.
“I loved doing this program when I was a kid. I was always on a separate team from my brother, so we would always fight to see who would be the better reader.
“I absolutely love it … and it’s nice to be able to help the kids, watch their love of reading grow,” Storey added. “We hope to keep the kids reading and just hope that they enjoy it and love it and keep doing it forever … inspire a lifelong love of reading.”
The Summer Reading Program is underway at all branches of the South Central Regional Library: Winkler, Morden, Altona, Miami, and Manitou.
Registration started July 2 and continues through July 27, with the program running until Aug. 17. The Bookland Explorers’ theme this year is “Join Us Under The Sea.”
Children are given a reading log filled with circles that each represent an hour of reading.
“They colour it in when they are done their reading, and they can bring in their log at any point during the summer until Aug. 17 when the program ends,” explained Storey.
For every hour spent with their nose in a book, kids get 10 pretend dollars and a weekly book draw ticket. They can use their dollars to purchase prizes from the store or grand prize draw tickets.
The weekly book draw takes place every Saturday, while the grand prize draw will be at the end of the summer.
There has already been strong interest in the program. The first day of registration in Morden had 183 kids, which was just under half of the total registration last year when it reach just over 400. Winkler, meanwhile, already had 220 kids signed up on day one.
“Winkler and Morden always have the highest, but the Miami, Altona and Manitou branches have less kids,” noted Storey. “We’ve had tremendous participation from all of the communities.”
The whole point of the program is keeping the kids engaged.
“In addition to the kids reading at home, we also run arts and crafts throughout the summer and activities like story time to get them to come into the library,” Storey said, noting they usually do two or three craft sessions per day, and there is anywhere from 10 to 30 kids participating.
The program attracts kids as young as three all the way up to 13. Older kids, age 14-19, are invited to register for the separate teen reading program which offers movie tickets and gift cards as prizes instead of toys and trinkets.
“The main goal of the program is just to keep the kids reading throughout the summer when they’re not in school and help them enjoy their books … it’s rewarding them for reading,” Storey said. “It’s important especially with the younger kids who are Kindergarten or Gr. 1 and who maybe just learned how to read … if they’re not going to pick up a book for a couple months, all those skills are going to go out the window, so we kind of want to nurture those skills and help them develop them further.
“I think the kids love it. They love reading, and they love doing the arts and crafts,” she said. “They also like picking out their prizes, but if it takes prizes to keep them motivated to keep reading, that’s an easy yes.”
Storey now looks forward to continuing to get to know the kids and their families throughout the summer.
“You get to know a lot of members of the community through this kind of thing because the parents come and they bring their kids … you get to know a lot of the faces and their names and you see them around town. It’s nice to connect with everybody.”
