For those who are familiar with their Friendly South Branch Librarian, you won’t be surprised at all that this post has nothing to do with soccer, hockey, the Olympics or anything pertaining to sports. For those of you who were hoping for a sports-related post, you have my apologies, but you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Instead, I’d like to talk a bit about the amazing kids we have here at the South Branch. While I’m fairly biased, we have some truly awesome kids who participated in this year’s “Galaxy of Reading” summer reading program. We had over 20 kids read over 1,000 minutes this summer (with one particularly exceptional child reading over 6,000 minutes!) and, I’m extremely proud to say that the kids collectively reached the South Branch’s minutes goal of 100,000 minutes with a week still to spare before school starts (hence the post title).  

Lest you think this Librarian is a slave driver, this goal was based on last year’s summer reading numbers which came so close to 100,000 minutes, that I couldn’t help but see if, with a little encouragement, the kids could cap that mark on their own. Mission accomplished! And I am so proud of these kids that I felt a simple Facebook post just wasn’t enough to celebrate their achievement.

For those of you who are thinking back when summer reading wasn’t a Big Thing (it wasn’t when I was a kid), allow me to fill you in on how things have changed. All of the Peabody Library’s locations put together exciting (free!) programs designed to engage and inspire kids to take advantage of their library privileges beyond school work and assigned reading. Plus, the Topsfield Fair is incredibly generous in offering free prize packs (including an admission ticket to kids who don’t already get in for free) and Chipotle offers free kids meal coupons to kids who reach the library’s set goal. This year, to be consistent with the schools, we requested that each child read 500 minutes over the summer.

These summer reading programs and incentives aren’t just a way to help kids from falling into the “summer slide” but are ways to enrich a child’s experience with the library, showing them how reading can be fun and not just something that’s assigned, that the library is a place to come to enjoy themselves, beat the heat and connect with their friends and community. There are a LOT more benefits to the library than just checking in and out books, and I hope that we’re instilling this into the young’ns so that they can grow to continue to take advantage of all of the amazing programs, project and information the library has to offer throughout their lives. Summer reading doesn’t just get kids reading. Hopefully, if it’s done right, it creates lifelong library users, and that’s always something to celebrate.