Library offers summer fun

Gibson Memorial Library offers a variety of programs throughout the year, but the action really takes off in the summer. From June 1 through July 28, Creston’s library runs their summer reading program.

The library hosts three different age groups for reading programs: birth through fifth grade, sixth grade through 12th grade and adults. Youth Services Librarian Danielle Dickinson Thaden explained the youngest program is split up as well.

“For our littlest ones, that’s reading several books with their folks and then doing additional literacy activities of their choice, including coming to some of our summer programs,” Dickinson Thaden said. “For our school-aged kids, it’s reading 15 minutes and marking off circles. There are 50 circles total, but for each 10, they can come in and get a prize for that.”

The program works similarly for the teens.

“They read for an hour and for each four circles, they can come pick up a prize,” Dickinson Thaden said. “They can also count attendance at a teen program as one of their circles. If they come to four programs and read for eight hours, they’ll fill out all 12.”

Prizes vary between age groups. The younger group can get a variety of toys as well as the final prize, which includes tickets to a couple local events. Teens prizes include legos, a grab bag and a chance to win a raffle prize.

Parents are not left out of the reading fun. The adult summer reading program asks participants to read or listen to eight different titles of their choice. Per the rules, “All books must to be checked out from the Gibson Memorial Library between June 1 and July 28 from our collection, inter-library loans or Libby/Bridges ebooks. DVDs and children’s books will not count towards your total.”

Adults who complete this program are entered in to win a prize. Three winners will be chosen at the end of the summer.

In general, the library hopes to encourage reading in all ages outside of the classroom.

“The reading program is all about reading when you’re not in school,” Dickinson Thaden said. “The whole purpose of it is that they are continuing to read, continuing to build their skills and having fun in a productive way over the summer.”

The library also offers other services as part of the summer reading program.

“Reading: super important. That’s the main goal, but we try to provide lots of other educational opportunities that are lots of fun,” Dickinson Thaden said. “We ended up with a little bit of a science vein [with performers] this year. Our theme is ‘Find Your Voice,’ which can be finding your voice creatively, find your voice with engineering, all sorts of things.”

The library has four groups of performers this year, sponsored by Friends of the Library. The ISU Insect Zoo, the Science Center of Iowa and Wilderman’s Treetop Tales will be hosted at 10 a.m. in the United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall. June 21′s Talewise will be in the Holy Spirit Catholic Church basement.

Along with the performers, the library will have a few family events, craft sessions and Find Your Voice Workshops.

“We’ll be having lots of workshops going on to help kids find their voice,” Dickinson Thaden said. “A lot of these are funded through a CPPC mini-grant, Community Partnerships Protecting Children. And those happen on Wednesdays throughout June and July. We’ll have some yoga classes and dance classes and then some crafts.”

All library events and programs will be free to the public, though some require registration. Dickinson Thaden explained the library hopes to make the summer easier through the summer reading program.

“Everything in our brochure is completely free, they just have to show up, and so we really, really encourage folks to do that,” Dickinson Thaden said. “There’s so much going on and we know how summer can stretch on sometimes with parents not knowing what to do with their kids. Come to the library, because beyond this we have our fun STEM cart, we have story times and toddler times, all sorts of things that we can find for your kids to do.”