Summer Reading’s coming! How many different themes are there, and how does your library choose?
This year, my library system is doing the Reading Takes You Everywhere theme. After a year in relative quarantine, we thought it was time to indulge some armchair wanderlust! Our Summer Reading site has links to our booklists, programs, and our Reading Challenge site, through ReadSquared, for the second year running. I mean, when you think of it, travel can be to so many places – through a book, you can visit outer space as easily as you can visit your neighborhood library.
I know so many library systems are part of the Collaborative Summer Library Program, and their theme this year, Tails and Tales, is just adorable! Also, home run – animal stories are always a win with the kiddos! The CSLP site has great resources, downloads, and ideas. If you have an access code, you can download the whole manual, which has booklists, programming ideas, and templates for early childhood, children, and teens.
For older tweens and teens who like the spookier side of life, a side theme you can run is Summer Scares, a program created by the Springfield-Greene County Library District, the Horror Writers Association, Book Riot, Booklist, and United for Libraries. I first found out about Summer Scares through the RA for All blog, and love the idea of having some extra offerings for my older readers who may be more interested in thrills and chills. The free programming guide features three suggested books for adults, for teens, and for tweens/middle graders, along with readalikes and programming ideas. A friend of mine who works in a different branch in our system is a horror/spooky books fan, too, and we’re both thinking up some ways to introduce Summer Scares programming and displays, with some QR codes to link our libraries’ (our libraries are in the same system, but about 13 miles apart) programming and Bitmoji collections.
Those are the three Summer Reading programs I know about – tell me about yours!
Mom Read It 