Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library

Tue, 09/19/2017 - 9:00am

Children’s summer reading programs are an extraordinarily important part of what libraries do. There’s ample data that shows kids who don’t keep up with their skills over the summer break experience a “summer slide,” and return to school in the fall having lost ground.

The issue became even thornier when researchers realized that kids in families with low incomes are more likely to experience summer slide, as parents with greater resources are able to pay for enrichment programs to bridge that gap.

That’s all part of why libraries are so committed to encouraging kids to keep reading through the summer. We love information, literacy, and equality.

We ran summer reading a little differently this year than last though. Instead of asking kids to fill out lists of titles, authors, and hours read, we gave them bingo cards. The squares were filled with instructions such as “Read for one hour,” “Read a book about science,” and “Do a good deed.”

When kids made a bingo, they could redeem the card for a prize.

Some of the boxes instructed the kids to write six-word book reviews. This ended up being my favorite part of the whole summer reading program. It was so much fun, in fact, that we extended the game to adults. We raffled off six mugs to adults who wrote six-word book reviews of their own.

One kid reviewed “Dog Man,” by Dave Pilkey, writing, “Dog Man is a good book. I liked when Petey tried to get his books back.” (Petey is the cat villain.)

Straight-forward, no nonsense review. More than six words, but that first sentence nailed the count, so I let it go. It doesn’t, however, hint to the fact that Dog Man is a Frankenstein-like creature made when someone sewed the head of a police dog onto the body of a policeman. Really, what are our kids reading these days?

Turns out kids are reading pretty much the same thing as adults, per this review of “Feed” by Mira Grant: “Zombies but with better thought-out science.”

One kid read “Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late” by Mo Willems. The verdict? “The pigeon wants to stay up.” That tickled my funny bone.

Maybe the pigeon should read “The Familiars” by Adam J. Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, because the kid who reviewed that wrote “I stayed up the whole night.”

I loved this review of a Nancy Drew book: “It inspired me to do horse-riding.” Isn’t that what’s best about reading? Finding inspiration to try new things?

Then there was this, about “Emily Windsnap” by Liz Kessler: “It was the best book ever.”

This kid reads a lot, too, so don’t take that review lightly.

The must read on the adult side was “Stoner,” by John Williams. It garnered a “One of the best novels ever,” review. So there are my two next reads.

I’m also intrigued by “Red Notice,” a Bill Browder novel described by the reviewer as a “heart in your throat page turner,” and Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, which earned “Beautiful prose — profoundly entertaining — gifted writer” review.

Still, of all of them, I’ve got to find out what’s going on in “The Lady Who Put Salt in her Coffee,” by Lucretia Hale. It’s one of the kids’ books, and apparently, “The chemist put arsenic in her coffee.”

Again, what are our kids reading?!

You can read the rest of the book reviews on display at the library!

Upcoming events

Minecraft Clubs: Wednesdays, 2-3 p.m., play club, and Fridays, 3-4:30, modders club.

Artist of the Month Tony van Hasselt: watercolor art on display in September in the upstairs Community Room.

Story Hour: Fridays, 10:15 a.m. Hear a story, make a craft, and sing a song!