By Miss Rachel

The end of the summer draws closer, whether we’re ready for the fall or not. But before we dive into the next season and the excitement and/or anxiety that might bring, let’s take a moment to reflect on the success of the Summer Reading Program here at the library!

If you stopped in this summer, you may have noticed our wall of speech and thought bubbles with the names of all the kids signed up for the program. Recently, we had to extend over to another wall because of the amazing number of kids who signed up: 309 total participants! For comparison, we had a total of 265 kids sign up last year. Not only that, we had 29 teens sign up this year, and they’ve read a total of 966 hours. Not a bad turnout for our awesome patrons!

We’d also like to give special thanks to all of the wonderful businesses in the community who contributed to our Summer Reading Program. Because of your help and donations, we’re able to get kids reading and building up skills they take with them for the rest of their lives. Thank you to Sweet Escape, Pizza Ranch in Hutchinson, Fantastic Sam’s, Subway, Litchfield Dental, McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Casey’s, Stockmen’s Greenhouse & Garden Center, and the Friends of the Litchfield Public Library – you all make this reading program a success!

Our young patrons were able to try new things and explore new interests this summer to help them with finding their voices. As many of them head to school, the library is still here to support all readers. Here is what we have scheduled for the fall.

For our littlest patrons, we have our baby/toddler storytimes on Wednesdays starting at 10:15am. This continues from August through the fall without a break. But our preschool storytime on Fridays will start up again on September 15^th at 10:00am. We will be outside as long as the weather permits.

Our STEAM Labs and LEGO Nights will continue to happen once a month: September 12^th, October 10^th, and November 14^th. STEAM Labs are for kids in grades kindergarten through sixth, and it runs from 4:00pm – 4:30pm. We ask that you call in or stop by to sign up your kiddo ahead of time. Descriptions of the STEAM lab activity will be posted on our website and Facebook page. LEGO nights go from 6:30pm-7:30pm and don’t have a sign-up — just stop in and build something cool with your young ones!

We also have our 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program that goes all year long. Parents/guardians can sign up any young readers who aren’t in kindergarten yet. Any book read to your little one gets counted toward the goal of 1,000 books – this can include storytime books read here at the library! Does it count if you read the same book more than once? Absolutely! We encourage reading books multiple times with young ones! You can sign up for this program at any time throughout the year.

Thank you to everyone who supported our Summer Reading Program; from parents, to grandparents, to babysitters, and everyone who helped our young patrons make their way to the library, we appreciate you. While we will miss the hustle and bustle of all the kids in the library during the summer days, we love to be here for them when they need us for a recommendation for their next book report or help with a research project. Maybe they will stop in just to find a book that reminds them of sweet summertime. Whatever the occasion, we are happy to see young readers here at the library.