Teen Summer Reading -- The Plan!

The coworker I split teen responsibilities with is leaving the library before summer starts -- it's good for her and her family but I'm going to miss her because our minds were in the same place on a lot of things and, after working in 2 libraries where I was the only person doing teen services, it was so nice to share the job with someone else.

With that, we had to hash out summer reading programs quickly this year since, well, I'll be going it alone.

And I'm really excited about what we're offering. If you're still thinking or plotting or worrying, you're welcome to steal away. I'm not writing up lengthy descriptions or how-tos just yet, since I prefer to reflect upon after the fact, as opposed to plan it out.

Kickoff -- Duct Tape Creations

The teens keep asking, so I am providing. I'm lucky I know how to do a handful of things (wallets, hats, flip flops, and purses) but I told a couple of very eager and enthusiastic teens they have to come and show off their skills. Which I don't think will be an issue.

Pizza and a Movie

I'm feeding the kids pizza, and I'm going to show them Tremors. Because hello campy "beneath the surface" horror fun.

Book Discussion -- Rotters 

One of my goals after my 90 day evaluation at work was to run a summer book club for teens. There is a very active book discussion group at the high school, and they have been wanting something to supplement it during the summer. Enter the library!

I angsted about what book to do for a long time, then I realized that doing a true horror story about, well, things beneath the surface was the way to go. I haven't read Daniel Kraus's Rotters, but I have a feeling we'll have a lot to talk about and I am looking forward to it.

Pizza and a Movie 

Another round of pizza being served and a movie being watched. I haven't decided yet if we're going to show Jaws or The Sixth Sense. I asked on our teen Facebook page but they haven't weighed in with me here. So I'll pull a librarian's choice.

Cupcake Wars

I guess you can call this one right on the surface, as opposed to beneath it. I did a cupcake decorating event as part of my Mardi Gras party and the kids liked it a lot. So this time it's even bigger -- and I haven't decided yet if it will really be competitive or not.

Book Discussion -- Cinder

Another book discussion, and this time we're taking on cyborgs. I haven't read this one but am so excited to and I think it'll lead to a great discussion, too.

Summer Wrap Up: Zombie Party

I'm running a zombie party. And I am so excited about the things I have in mind for it. In addition to the party aspect, I'm going to show Warm Bodies. I'm completely unsold on the movie and don't want to see it, but my teens were raving about it and how cool it'd be if we could show it when it came out.

I aim to serve.

I'm still sussing out what I want to do in terms of passing programming and in terms of reader's advisory/displays, but I have a list of ideas in mind. I figure if I have them planned out now, I can be much more effective in implementing them during the summer.

I'm pretty excited about the plans. I get to thinking sometimes I'm not doing a lot that's super innovative or mind-blowing, but then I remember that these are the things teens want to do and love coming to. And that's what matters.

Summer Reading 2011: Lessons Learned & Improvements for 2012

Despite how completely burned out on summer reading I am, as soon as the program ended, I began to brainstorm how I could improve it for 2012. I figure the sooner I think about the things that didn't work as well as I wished (or worked well and I could push more), the more likely I'd remember when I start planning for 2012's program.

As I began thinking about the things I wanted to improve, it struck me as worthwhile to blog about it, in hopes of not only remembering these things for the future, but also as a way to garner ideas from others who might have ideas I could implement into my program. I'd love any thoughts you have or any things that worked particularly well at your library. Moreover, I'd love to see other people's ideas for improving their programs, too, as it can only help us all brainstorm new possibilities. We learn as we go, and what better way to learn than to share what did and didn't work, no matter how big or small the thing.

Administrative/Organizational

• One of the things I did was send a weekly email to the staff on Friday mornings, updating them on what events happened that week, what the attendance was, where we were on our registration numbers, and then a list of reminders for questions that popped up. I also included a run down of the programs coming up the following week. Many staff printed these out to have the notes, and I think continuing this will be hugely helpful.
  

• Although I had all of my summer reading materials prepared well in advance of summer, I think being prepared even sooner than April will be helpful. The more I can talk about the process at our monthly staff meetings, the more staff will be prepared to answer questions, find materials, and handle being slammed right at the beginning of the program with eager kids.

• Along with that, I would like to have all my shirts and prizes ordered sooner. I think I had them done in April this year, but by March would be great. That's when I wrote out my first donation letters, and it would be nice to be ahead of the game before then.
  

• One of the big things I've been thinking about is the length of the program. We're 8 weeks, which I think is a good time frame. But seeing how insane we were the first week when it came to registration, part of me wonders if it would be worthwhile to make our program a week longer and do no programming the first week. That way, all of the kinks in registration are worked out before we're slammed with eager kids for programs. I'd also like to end our program before August, as I think dragging into the first week of August made it a little too long. This is dependent, of course, on the school schedule.
  

• A simple change: having a spot on the reading logs for the kids to put their names. I made all of our reading logs this summer for all our age groups (we don't have a pr department), but I completely forgot to put a line on there for kids to put their name. Most were smart enough to do it themselves, but that little detail will make a difference next year.
  

• I'd also like to simplify information collection at registration. This year, we took names, phone numbers, school, grade, and shirt size. We really don't NEED shirt size, since the shirts are all ordered in advance of registration, and I took it mostly as a way to determine how many shirts/what sizes to order for next year. Buying hundreds of t-shirts without a clue how many sizes we'd need was hard, but I don't think I'll need to collect the information again. This should make registration just a little quicker, since this is the question that trips many up. Note: we do not collect library card information, and I think this is very important. I realize not all libraries are lucky enough to be open to all, regardless of card status, but this was one of my biggest selling points to kids during my school visits. I don't want to put any hurdles in the way of kids, and I will continue to keep it this way.

• One of the suggestions from my volunteers was to number our registration cards so that when kids are turning in prize slips into drawings, rather than have to fill out their names and phone numbers (which takes time), they could just be appropriately numbered. I love how simple this idea is, and I'll definitely be implementing this.
  

• I had a 4th grade summer school teacher ask about running the program with her class, which got me thinking I could easily get the summer school kids involved in the program. If I made up classroom kits, the entire program could be run in the summer school, with the teacher providing the kids with prizes and incentives they pick up when they check in with us. This gets more kids involved and encourages them to read while they're in summer school.

• I planned my numbers based on last year, which left me short on teen shirts. I'd order more shirts next year, and I would order a lot more of the registration bags we give everyone who signs up. The kids use those things like crazy during the summer, and I had many break their bags from such use. Having spares would be helpful for those kids who lug home so many books.
  

Publicity

• One thing I never did this summer was contact the local media with our events, which was a pretty big oversight. I was lucky to gain a little post-event coverage in a local paper because one of the parents who attended was a reporter, but this is something I want to be more savvy with in the future. An easy way to remember to do this is to send a weekly bulletin to my local papers, much in the way I did for the staff this year. Where with the staff I sent a weekly update on what our programming numbers were and what the upcoming events for the next week were, I would simply copy and paste the upcoming events into a separate email for the newspapers. Little extra work involved, but the potential for a little press is huge and it might help our attendance and our reach a bit.

• For the teens, I made a blogging, Facebook, and GoodReads posting schedule. I didn't quite stick to it as rigorously as I could have, and I will in the future. I ran specific kinds of posts during the week, so on Mondays, I posted upcoming events on Facebook; Wednesdays I posted teen book reviews (which I received throughout the summer) or other teen-centric lists (like their favorite summer reads or favorite tv shows, which were things they told me about on the back of their reading logs); and Fridays I posted book lists of some sort. I wasn't as good about updating Facebook as I wanted to be, so it's a goal to continue that. I had planned on updates M-W-F, but it ended up being more of an update-when-I-remembered system. And as far as GoodReads, that was pretty much non-existent in updates. I have a few teens who use it regularly, and I wanted to be better about it for work, but I wasn't.
  

• One of my staff members updated a whiteboard each day with what the program was. I think what I'll do next year is give a staff member the duty to do this, as well as to create fliers for the week's programs that can be displayed in the children's and teen area. We had a weekly program sign on our outside doors, but more take-aways could be helpful in the service areas. While each kid who registered received a pamphlet with all of our programs, having more of those would likely be valuable, too, especially since I only had enough to give to those who registered for the program. Our programs are open to all, regardless of summer reading participation, so having more publicity available to everyone would be nice.
  

Reading Component

• I will definitely be keeping our pre-readers program going. I am eager to plan out more ways to incentivize this program. I want to find more prizes for them to purchase in the prize store we run, as I focused this year on more weekly raffle drawings for them. I did their program with literacy activities, rather than straight time-counting, and I think I would do this set up again.
  

• At my former library, I ran a 4-week guys read program for middle school boys, and I would love to do this again. The bulk of my tween attendees were middle school boys, and many were rabid about reading. I think I could run a program easily, and it would be beneficial for them in a number of ways. It would be easy to sneak this into the program, offering it as a brown bag lunch sort of program at the beginning of summer.
  

• I'm going to keep counting time, but rather than let kids time out on their reading logs, I'll let them keep reading as long as they want to. They'll be able to get a second, third, fourth log to keep recording reading time and earning prize.

• I didn't switch our book displays at all this summer, and it's something I would like to do more of. It's an easy one to implement.

• Abby kept track of her summer reading on a big log for all of her kids to see, and I think I'd like to do the same thing and have staff jump in, too. It'd be fun to see how much we read along with the kids.
  

Programming

• I will be bringing back the mobile collection for teens, I think, but I am going to advertise it a lot more. It's such a nice bonus to our program, and the reach could be a lot greater than it was. It'd be easy to talk it up more during classroom visits, as well as include relevant information on our promotional materials. If I could make inroads with any of the summer school teachers, too, that would definitely help. The other thing I'd change up -- and the credit to this idea goes to my intern -- is that I'd change the books in the mobile collection every time I went. Rather than have all 80 or 100 available from the start, switching up the books every week would breed excitement. For the students who had library cards, this could be a good point of connecting them with materials from our in-house collection they want to really check out (rather than check out via the system I used for the mobile collection).
  

• For the teens, I had one activity sheet full of mini passive programs that they could do to earn prize money. I had weekly lists for the kids. The system was silly and not really the best method to let kids earn more prizes. Next year, I'll do for the kids what I did for the teens -- not 8 sheets, but one sheet total. This will let them work at their own pace, and it ensures it'll be better promoted, since I can pop it into the registration bags, like I did for the teens. There's less worry about missing a week, and there's more potential for completing the activities. Since activity completion is recorded on our registration cards, a kid losing his sheet isn't a problem because we know how much that person had completed.
  

• Speaking of the activity sheets, I'd emphasize these more. A lot of the activities were summer reading theme based, so kids were reading books about different continents, trying foods from different countries, and making different cultural crafts. It was a way for the kids to learn and explore without feeling like homework or pressure, as many of the activities were reading based and thus, could be counted on their reading logs.

• I want to bring back more story times. We had one this summer, but I think we need to go back to two per week. I'd stagger times a bit so that our morning story time wouldn't discourage people from coming back in the afternoon for a program. Perhaps putting both storytimes on Friday, one right after the other, would be the way to go for this. I'd also like to offer my outreach storytimes where possible. Getting to the kids in the summer is as important as during the school year, and it's a way to promote our services. I just need to find the time to do it, is all.

• Although Lego Club did fine during our early afternoon slot, I think going back to a later time (say, 3 pm, rather than 1:30 pm) would be better. One of my school year regulars could never make it because his parents worked, and I think the time chance could bring a bigger attendance.

• One of the passive programs I did was let kids guess how many pieces of candy were in a water bottle each week and the kid with the closest guess got the keep the candy and water bottle. This was a huge success, and it was super easy to set up and implement (and really was not that pricey). I plan on continuing it, but next year, I'll be better about putting up signage each week that shares what the previous week's real answer was and who the winner was. I was asked this a lot, but I didn't follow up with it this year. But next year, it's a simple thing I can do alongside my other Monday morning routines.
  

Prizes

I think when I recover enough from summer reading, I'd like to post about prizes in general, but I have a few things for sure I want to change.

• Universal prize dollars. This year, I had three prize dollars for the three different program levels, but that seemed silly. It'd be a lot easier to have one standard prize dollar.
  

• Speaking of prize dollars, I would copy a LOT more than I did this year at the beginning. We're talking thousands. Putting all of the extras in a box in the back would save the hassle of the "oops, we're out" when I'm in the middle of too many things to make copies. If we end up doing too much and having left overs at the end of the program, it will just become scrap paper. Not a huge deal to over do it, rather than under do it.
  

• In the event of being under prize moneyed, I'd put the master copies on the staff computer on the desk top so that whoever is on desk when the prize money runs out can print it themselves. I didn't think of putting all of the program master paperwork on the staff computers, and it's such an easy thing. Letting the staff be more self-sufficient will save me and them a lot of stress.

• We have three types of prizes: a twice-a-week prize store, where kids can exchange their prize money for prizes (almost all purchased from Oriental Trading); a weekly prize raffle that kids can drop their prize money in for a chance to win a bigger prize (that's usually what businesses have donated, including tickets to sporting events, Noah's Ark, etc); and a grand prize for someone to win at the end of summer (which everyone gets an entry in whenever they complete a certain number of hours read). I was really let down in the number of entries from the kids in the great weekly prizes, and honestly, I think I'll nix it next year. I think adding more to the prize store will be better and less confusing for everyone. It's also a bit of a cost savings, which always brings me a little joy.
  

• That said, the entries for the teen weekly prizes were excellent, and I will definitely be continuing that set up again, perhaps adding more/better weekly prizes for them. I lucked out in that they were very eager for our grand prize this year (a netbook) and many used their prize money as extra entries in that.
  

• Speaking of teens, I think I'd like to do a special lock in or pizza party for those who complete the entire program. What a fun way to celebrate with the group, and I think it would encourage more to finish and turn in their logs -- one of my teens read all 50 hours, but she never actually turned in her reading log nor earned her prizes because of it. A final invite-only event could be incentive for a number of these kids.
  

• I'd keep my prizes staggered like I did. For every 10/15 hours read (kids/teens respectively), they earned coupons good for local businesses/establishments that included pizza and custard; for every 25/30 hours read, they earned a summer reading t-shirt with the summer reading theme; and for every 40/50 hours read, they got a free book. It made giving the tshirts out fair and served as a way to advertise our program, as well. And who can deny how important it is for those who read to be rewarded with a book?

• Tween programming will never, ever go away. What a wonderful, exciting, and well-attended series of events. We'd never served this group specifically at the library, and doing it mattered. These kids were there every week, and every time they saw me in the library, regardless of what day it was, they asked when the next program was.
  

So these are the things -- many simple -- that I'm going to change in the future. I'm sure as I start planning for summer 2012, more things will come up, as will comments from patrons and kids who come in during the year.

Summer Reading 2011: The Final Frontier

Summer reading's finally over, and I've done most of the tabulation for participation and program attendance. We have a slack week between when we end and when we really end (which gives stragglers a chance to collect prizes), so my numbers are based on the numbers before slack week, which is good enough for me.

I'm thrilled with increases just about everywhere, and I have so many ideas for improving the program next year. I'm saving up my post on that for later this week.

Our library serves a population of about 14,000, with a wide geographical reach (a lot of it rural and without any public transportation). I'm the only youth services librarian, but I was so lucky this summer to have an intern help me out nearly 20 hours a week, as well as an adult volunteer who helped out about that much, and I had 2 members of our Friends of the Library who helped in running our twice-a-week prize store.

Registration

We had a total of 532 under the age of 19 register for the program. That broke down as 78 pre-readers, 240 youth between 4 and 12, and 114 teens. That surpassed last year's numbers, which had 520 registered, with 45 pre-readers, 413 youth, and 62 teens. In 2009, 509 registered, with 39 pre-readers, 400 youth, and 70 teens.

For the pre-readers, we had 45% of all the available activities completed by participants (I took the number of participants by the number of total activities to get that number). More than 50% of those who signed up came back to check in, which is an excellent return rate. 30% of the pre-readers completed the entire program. All together, this group completed a total of 1,055 literacy activities.

For the youth, we had 31% of all the possible hours read by participants (I took the total number of participants by the total number of possible hours to get that number). 21% of the youth checked in their logs, and 16% completed the entire program. All together, this group read for a total of 2,597.5 hours this summer.

For the teens, we had 33% of all the possible hours read by participants (I took the total number of participants by the total number of possible hours to get that number). 50% of the teens checked in their logs, and 20% completed the entire program. All together, this group read for a total of 1,885 hours.

Programming

The teen mobile collection, which ran twice a week during lunch hours at the high school, we had 12 teens sign up for the reading club, and we circulated 25 items.

This summer, we offered 16 all-ages programs, 7 tween programs, 9 teen programs, and 10 story times. We had a total of 42 programs that brought out 1,342 attendees. Last year, by comparison, there were a total of 51 program and a total attendance of 1,464. Last year, there were two story hours offered, and if you take out the story time sessions for both this year and last year, we had a total of 1,200 attendees at our programs, compared to 1,121 last year. It makes me think if we had offered two story times like we did before, we'd have easily beat last year's attendance numbers, but I'm thrilled with how high program attendance without story time included was.

By comparison, in 2009 thee were 50 programs total for an attendance of 1,706. Taking out story times, which were offered 5 different times during the week (including two as outreach), there were only 10 programs and an attendance of 831.

I broke out teen programming into another category, as well, and we had a total of 9 programs this summer for teens, with an attendance of 117. Last year, there were 3 teen programs, with 21 attendees. In 2009, there were 3 programs offered for teens and 15 attended. Our numbers here have skyrocketed. I think the idea that "if you build it, they will come" is true, and I think getting into the schools a lot has helped greatly. We also had 8 teens sign up for library cards this summer, which is a great number to see.

Other thoughts

When the program ended, the first thing I did was open up a document and begin planning out improvements for next year. I've got a handle on what the scope of the program is, and I have goals for where I can expand. As much as I'm completely burned out and over summer reading (and eager to get rid of our decorations, prizes, fliers, etc.), I'm also a little excited about planning ahead.

Week 8: The Last Week of Summer Reading

The end has come! As of today, my Summer Reading Club is over -- and it's been exhausting and exhilarating and every other emotion possible. We had our last couple of programs, and we're opening our prize store one more time on Saturday next week for kids to pick out prizes. Because of that, I don't have my final registration or completion numbers yet, but I will next week and I'll be posting a huge final rundown of the entire summer, including my plans for improving next year's program.

This week though, we had a couple programs.

Monday was Lego Club, as has been all summer long, and we had one of our bigger turnouts, too. We had 24 show up, and almost every single one was a boy. I love this. It's such a perfect group for boys, and they're all so nice to one another while they're there.

Tuesday, which is our usual all ages programming day, was a non-programming day for me. I used the opportunity to take inventory of all my programming supplies for the fall, since I'm already figuring out what I need. I got a $500 grant, and I plan on using it to bulk up on art supplies for a fall program I'm going to try out. It was a nice, zen activity to do, and I'm eager to finish this job up in the next week or two. I thrive on cleanliness and organization, so the mess that came with summer has been begging for that attention.

We made up for our no program Tuesday with our big end-of-summer program on Wednesday. Jennifer had suggested we do this program early in the year, and it's one I was so pleased with that I would consider doing again in a heartbeat. I'm not much of a name-the-performer person on this blog for many reasons, but I definitely will say that any library who can, should consider bringing out Dino from Nature's Niche for a program. He brought out a ton of live exotic animals and presented about the animals, how he came to rescue them and rehabilitate them, and he really engaged the kids in the program. They got to be involved, and they got to touch or hold nearly everything. We had over 85 kids show up for the program -- all ages -- and we drew in a lot of people who just happened by the library that morning, which was wonderful. Not only did he engage the kids, his program was longer than most. It went for nearly 2 hours, which was huge bang for the buck.

After the program, one of the dads I knew from Lego Club came up and told me he didn't even think to bring his camera and write about this for the paper. But he gave me his email, and we'll get a nice little piece in the local paper about the program, too. That was one of the things I didn't think enough about this summer and one of the changes for next year. Alas -- I got some fantastic pictures of the kids with the animals, and I'm thrilled the community will get to see some of them. The ones here are of a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach (my favorite animal of the day which, indeed, I did pet!) and my second favorite, the little alligator who liked being held like a baby. He apparently feels very soft, except if you rub his tail the wrong way. That apparently feels like a razor blade (I let the kids enjoy that one, so I didn't get to confirm this first hand).

Thursday, we had our last teen program of the summer, which was a teen Lego Club. We had a low turnout for the program, and none of the kids who were begging me to run this program for them showed up. It happens. But the boys who did come had a good time, and their conversations were hilarious to listen to. And surprisingly, they made less violent Lego creations than the younger kids usually do.

Friday was a no program day, but since I worked the reference desk half the day, I got the chance to check kids in and dole out prize dollars. It was fun to reward the kids who worked hard all summer, and I actually got a compliment from one of the parents saying how fun the program had been and how much her kids enjoyed it. After a summer that feels like it drags and feels like it's one disaster after another, hearing that from a parent really felt nice. She'd approached me before about my style of programming and how different it was from my predecessor and from the people in neighboring libraries, and her kids liked how laid back I was. Refreshing!

In my down time this week, I did a lot of brain storming on improvements for the next summer reading club, and I can't wait to share them, along with my final numbers. I already know my teen programming attendance has increased significantly from the part two years, though this year it seems my all ages programming numbers have dropped a bit (though their registration numbers are the same). I think there's a few reasons for it, which I'll hit upon next week.

That said, this has been one huge sigh of relief. I'm so glad the summer reading program is over, and though this has been my third summer reading club, this felt like the most challenging because I was taking care of the entire youth program, from birth to 18, rather than from 12 to 18. And honestly, I've begun to question my own feelings about summer reading clubs in general. That's not to say I don't think it has a value, but I think that sort of gets diminished in the everyday management/administrative aspects of the program. It's given me a lot to think about for doing some new things in the future, that's for sure.

Summer Reading Club: Week 7 or - ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT -

See that drink there? I am waiting until the end of this week to indulge in a few because that means summer reading club is over and it's time to celebrate. But for now, here's how week seven stacked up.

We didn't get any new teen sign ups this week, so we're still at 114 teens participating this year in the summer reading club. I got a stack of registrations this week from one of the summer school teachers who had her class participate (something I think I might try more thoughtfully next year to do), and we're up to 335 youth signed up. We had another pre-reader sign up, and we were at 79 for that group. That brings us to a total of 527 participants for summer reading club. For what it's worth, I planned for 100 teens and surpassed that, and I planned for 45 pre-readers, and I also surpassed that. Color me thrilled. I'm more eager to see completion rates, which I'll know at the middle of the month.


Monday we had our regular Lego Club, with 15 people coming out. We had no internet for a period of time on Monday, and part of me wonders if that's part of why attendance for Lego Club's been down the last couple of weeks (we were internet-down last Monday, too).

Tuesday, which we called International Day, was a shot in the dark for me. I gave the responsibility for the program over to a coworker before summer started, and when she left for a new job, it was given to another coworker. I was in the dark mostly about what the plans were, but I trusted it'd work -- and I got quite an interesting shopping list of supplies, which in the end, only one of the things ended up being used (but we can always use tissue paper and gold wrapping paper later, at least). My coworker took the kids on a trip to England, where they got to learn a bit about the royal family, played a game of trying to make the soldier laugh, and then she took them to Peru, where they learned about the government, the rain forests, and the Inca. They got to make these beautiful Incan fans as their craft at the end. It was a nice program and kept the kids interested, and we had 54 come out. I was thrilled we could do it outside since the weather finally cooperated. This was the program where my intern finally understood what the strange stress of being a librarian was like -- as much as it's sort of a strange thing to say, I feel like this was an important moment for her to experience. I had gone inside to take care of something, and she was dropped into the program, wherein a mother approached her and another coworker and complained that we didn't have enough glue that worked for all of the kids. That was the straw, folks, but it was an important one to learn: you're never going to make everyone happy, and the things people will complain about are bizarre (because really, my small library having over 50 working glue bottles so each kid can have one . . .).

Wednesday was our last official Tween program of the summer, and when I told the kids that, they were really upset. They absolutely loved having a program of their own, and they have been rabid about making things. Perhaps it was the insanity of summer hitting me, but my program was Potato Art -- I gave the kids potatoes and knives and let them make stamps of the potatoes. Did you read that? I gave the kids knives. We only had one small nick, and the girl who did it was kind of the one I'd expect it from (and she was fine, bandaged it, and kept on carving). They had more fun carving designs than painting, which leads me again to think I could just hand them anything and they'd keep themselves entertained for an hour. We had 15 tweens out for the program.

Thursday was our last teen book club of the summer (officially -- the regular school-time program picks up again on the 18th) and this was where we did the thing with the balloons. So funny story: just earlier that day, my intern and I were talking about success with teen programming, since I'd seen it come up on one of the YALSA list servs. I told her I think any book discussion with at least 2 people is a success, and programs that bring out 5-7 are good, and anything above that is total gravy -- I've had a gravy of a summer, as it turns out, but more on that in a later wrap up post. I bring this up because this week's book club was on the small side, but it was just as successful to me as if we'd had 10 or 12 out, like we've had at some other book club meetings.

The summer mobile collection had its last day on Wednesday, and in the end, we checked out nearly 30 books, and we signed up 15 kids for summer reading club. There were also 21 entries into our prize drawings, meaning the kids were using it to do the program quite well. Though the numbers sound low, I'm quite impressed. We had no advertising of the mobile collection, and it gave me a real jumping off point for the future. Incorporating this sort of program is something I want to do more of, and I think I have reason to do so. Especially when it comes to getting kids participating with the library and getting our faces out there. I feel like I got to meet a lot of my patrons this summer through this program, which is important with this age group. This is something I'm going to talk more about later, too.

I just have to make it through this week, and I will be so, so happy. Plans for this week, besides surviving, include cleaning my office out and going on a shopping trip for supplies to replenish the waning stuff (and cash in on back-to-school sales).

Summer Reading Club: Week 6

Week 6 has come and gone for summer reading, meaning we only have 2 weeks left of summer reading! Technically, there are three weeks, since we keep the prize store open for an extra week for stragglers, but programming and other events are done the week after next.

We're up to 114 teens signed up for the summer reading club, 78 pre-readers, and 312 youth. That brings our total to 504 signed up, which is officially more than last year.

Programming was exhausting but so much fun this week. We did not have the weather on our side, though, as we enjoyed a week of absolute heat and humidity, and that took a toll on attendance and my programming plans. But I made changes as I went, and things ended up just fine. I have to remind myself all the time that I'm the only one who knows what the plan really was, so no one can be disappointed if not everything happened.

As usual, we had our Monday Lego Club, though the crowd was low, with only 15 attendees.

Tuesday was our Recycled Costume Show, which I blogged about already, and we had about 35 show up for this program. This was a program I think was impacted the most by the heat, since we had to move inside.

On Wednesday, we ran our tween program, and this week we did Chocolate Olympics. I plan to blog about this program, since it's one that was a total blast (though a shade pricey). The kids had a lot of fun, and we even managed to sneak outside for a little bit to do a couple events. I may or may not have been conned into participating in a couple events myself by these kids. We ended up having nearly 40 for this program, which was a wonderful attendance.

Thursday, we took the Chocolate Olympics idea and morphed it a tiny bit for the teens, calling it our Death by Chocolate party. Again, I'll slip in the information about this program in a post next week, but this was another hugely popular program that left a lot of teens very happy (and messy, which was my favorite part!). We had 20 for this program, which is a great turn out, and I loved that it was more boys than girls.

All of the programs were a blast but super exhausting, since they were all staff-intensive programs. We have just two more staff intensive programs next week -- an international festival and a tween art program -- along with teen book club. Then the following week we have our final performer, along with a teen Lego competition. The end is so in sight, and I can't wait to be done and on to seeing what our final completion numbers are, among other things. I'm ready to sit down and really think about what worked well and what can be changed for next year. I'm also super excited to start talking about the new fall programming planned, since I'm trying some new ideas out.

Summer Reading Club: Week 5

Week five is out of sight and out of mind. We're on to week six tomorrow, which means we've only got two more weeks of summer reading club.

Maybe what's scary is that I've already finished planning my fall programming and have plans sketched out through next March already. I'm ready for something new!

This week, our registrations continued to grow. We now have 107 teens signed up, 76 pre-readers signed up, and 307 youth signed up. That brings us to almost 500 total! I am so thrilled with the teen sign ups, in part because it's a huge number for our small town, it's more than double last year's numbers, and it's higher than the numbers I pulled at my previous library system which served a much larger population. I'm thrilled, too, to see such a large pre-reader sign up.

In terms of programming this week, our numbers were down quite a bit. I think there are a number of reasons for this, but I'm not going to be sad to say we still had good numbers.

On Monday, we had our Lego Club and it brought 20 kids out for fun! Their creations are getting more and more complicated and huge. The thing I think I love most about Lego Club, aside from the creativity it breeds and the excellent displays we get in the children's room because of it, is that it really gets kids to collaborate. They work together on making things, and I love seeing that.

On Tuesday, we had our last system-supported performers, and it was a folk band. I was a little nervous at first, but they ended up being excellent. Even I had a blast, since I knew most of the songs. One of the things that we're required to do for these programs is have a sign language interpreter. We used to have a staff member who did it, but after she left, we've hired a local company to do it (we're home to the state deaf school, so this is a population our library serves regularly). However, for these programs, we don't usually have deaf attendees; this week, we did! And the girl who came had a total blast, minus a complication she had when her younger sister began heckling the band and not listening to her. I had to do the gross adult thing and call her mom at the deaf girl's request to say the younger daughter wasn't behaving. I never got an answer from mom, but it was one of those moments where I felt like I had to be a real adult (and reminded me of the responsibility I have to my kids, too). We ended up having over 70 attend this program, which is lower than most Tuesday programs and was a little disappointing for me, especially because the band was fantastic.

Wednesday was our regular tween program, and we did beaded creations. I plan on blogging about this program since it was marvelously simple and fun. We had 15 tweens come out (again a low number), and the kids made all sorts of fun jewelry out of beads. The thing I love about this age group is that the attendance was 50/50 male/female. Boys don't care they're making jewelry at this age, and they have fun doing it.

Thursday was our teen book group, where we discussed Holly Black's White Cat. We also talked about programming ideas for the fall, and they're all stoked about the events. As much as this group is a book club, I use them as my advisory board, too, and it's so helpful to have it all in one, rather than having multiple groups. They enjoy telling me what sounds good and what sounds lame. At the end of this meeting, I pulled out a bag of ARCs and let the kids dive in, then I went up to the teen area with them and did individual reader's advisory with them. I know what kinds of books they like since I see them every other week, and I love sending them home with piles of books to read.

We continued our mobile collection this week, signing up 12 teens so far for the reading program, and lending out about 20 books. I cannot emphasize how thrilled I am this program is in play and working out as it is.

This week is probably the last very staff intensive programming week, but it's one I have been looking forward to all summer. I've amped up the tweens and teens for their separate chocolate parties (where they are going to get messy!) and we have our annual recycled fashion show. Of course, these outside events happen during the most sweltering week of heat we've had so far this summer -- which means they'll be three times as fun.

Summer Reading Club: Week 4 (or the Half Past Point!)

It's officially past the half way point now, and I'm now counting down the minutes until summer reading is over. I'm also at the point where I know exactly all the supplies I need for the rest of my programs, which is to say, I kind of feel like it's under control and manageable.

But it was a big week, despite our offering a smaller number of programs. Our numbers are looking great, and I've officially met the goal I set for myself in terms of teen registration.

We have 100 teens signed up for summer reading, 68 pre-readers, and 294 youth, bringing out total to 456! We are on track to beat last year's summer reading numbers.

What helped bring our teen numbers over the 3 digit mark (thereby doubling last year's numbers) was the mobile collection that started this week. Starting last Wednesday, my intern and I will be visiting the summer school during their lunch period. During our visit, we set up a small cart of books and all of our registration materials (including prizes and prize money) for the kids to check out. They can sign up and participate with us at the schools, and they're welcome to borrow books for us during the duration of summer reading without their library card. The response we've gotten from this so far has been fantastic -- in our two days (about 30 minutes each time), we signed up 12 new summer reading participants and checked out as many books, too. I'll be posting about this huge and exciting project this week, but it's one that has given me excellent face time with kids in a way I would otherwise not get in the library.

With the holiday on Monday and my inability to gauge whether we'd be slow or we'd be swamped, I kept programming low key this week.

On Tuesday, we had an all-ages movie day and showed Gnomeo and Juliet. Because our programming room is tight, we have to limit attendance for these programs and require attendees get a ticket. I think the entire set up is very unfriendly, but it's how it has to be. To accommodate a crowd, I decided to hold two showings of the movie -- one at 11 am and one at 1:30. We had sign ups for both sessions, but I believe people kind of forget summer school began on Tuesday, meaning our first showing had no attendees and our second had 50. I had cookies and lemonade donated from a local service organization for them to enjoy.

Wednesday was our tween program, and we had a candy sushi and a movie day. I put out a couple examples of candy sushi (easy ones -- I cut a rice krispie into thirds, then put a Swedish fish on top and wrapped it in a thin strip cut from a fruit roll up and I took a giant marshmallow and pulled a Swedish fish through the middle) and I put out the supplies. We had giant marshmallows, Swedish fish, fruit roll ups, gummy worms, and gummy life savers, and we played Megamind. 30 kids came out, and they ATE. We ran out of half our food, so I went and replenished empty plates with more food from our cabinets, and it was all gone. I think tweens are better eaters than teens, so I know who I'll be turning to in the future to clean our extra snacks up.

Wednesday was also our first day doing the mobile collection, as I mentioned earlier.

Thursday, we had a teen program that everyone told me I was insane for running: tie dying. I did it outside under our tent, pulling out 4 tables and covering them in cheap (read: throwaway) table cloths. I told the kids to bring something to tie dye, and of the 16 kids who came, only 2 didn't have something. Luckily, the library is next door to the dollar store, so they walked over and bought something. This program was a blast, and I loved seeing the teens go to town dying. Moreover, I used this as an opportunity to feel out some fall programming ideas, and I think I've got some very excited teens. Clean up for the program was easy, since we just tossed the table cloths and excess dye we had (which was little -- the box claimed we'd be able to make over 30 dyed shirts, but we made 20 and hard little to no dye left). That's my shirt to the left. Not bad for my first time doing tie dye, huh?

Friday was our story time, and it was also the second day of our mobile collection. I had a blast listening to a pair of brothers, one going into 7th grade and one going into 10th grade. The 7th grader repeated, nearly verbatim, my speech I gave in his class about the program and all the cool prizes teens could win for participating, while his 10th grade brother thought it was all a scam. They bickered back and forth, with the 7th grader signing up and his brother telling me no way, no how, it was a scam. Then he came back 10 minutes later and signed up. Excitedly, even.

I've been thinking about areas of improvement for next year and areas of expansion, and one of the things that came up with this week was getting the school classes involved. I had a teacher ask for registration materials so she could do the program with her class, and I thought this was an opportunity worth pursuing next year. The teacher planned on using a lot of what I'd created in passive programming as classroom learning opportunities. Maybe next year, I'll reach out sooner to the schools and see if the summer school classes can incorporate our program in their curricula -- imagine the greater participation, too!

That said, I am a very, very, VERY tired librarian. I'm counting down to August 6th, our last day, and I'm counting down to a much earned vacation out of the country just a couple weeks after that.

Summer Reading Club: Week 3

The end of the third week of summer reading club signals to me that it's almost the forth week, which means we're almost half way through the program and through summer. It's both scary and mystifying -- how did it go so fast? It feels like it's going slow! Alas, it's been another good week, and this was the last week before kicking off a new program, which is our teen mobile collection.

This week's sign up numbers (as of Friday) indicate continued participation. So far, we have 83 teens signed up (which is way up from last year's 50-some!), 281 children age 4-12 signed up, and 67 pre-readers signed up. I'm incredibly pleased with the pre-reader sign up; I looked up last year's stats on the number of kids under 4 signed up for summer reading, and there were only 43. We're knocking that out of the ballpark this year, and I think it's an area I'll be thinking about more in the coming months, as well.

For those of you who do a pre-reader summer reading program, have you seen growth like this? What sorts of programs do you offer this specific age group? My area of expertise in youth services really is in the 8 and older category, so I'm curious what sorts of things you do for your prereaders and caregivers both during the summer and the rest of the year.

On Monday, we had our weekly Lego/Games Club, and we had 33 attendees -- the largest so far! I wasn't there, since I was in New Orleans, but it sounds like my intern did a marvelous job, and as usual, the creations the kids made were intricate and fun to look at when I got back.

On Tuesday, we had a storyteller brought in from our system. He was worlds stronger than the week before's performer, and he really got the kids engaged and interested in his stories. We had a total of 83 attendees, which is a good number. I was a little bummed, though, since it was probably the first perfect day we'd had all summer, and I hoped for a larger turnout.

Wednesday was our Tween Canada Day party, where we had 22 attendees. I talked about this program in depth here. As much as I love working with teenagers, I really have a soft spot for this age group. What I love about 9-12 year olds is that they're interested in making things, and they're not only eager to try things, but they're still willing to try new things (and they're okay with failing!). Not only that, but it's both boys and girls who love doing this stuff -- and they're willing to do both "girl" and "guy" activities without caring.

With the incredible turn out I've had this year for Tween programs, you bet I'll be incorporating it a lot more during the school year and reaching out to these kids.

I was out sick on Thursday, which was our teen book club discussion of Lish McBride's Hold Me Closer, Necromancer. I admit to not being into the book, and I quit after 100 pages (which, as you'll remember, I tell the kids to do if they reach page 50 and can't get into a book). My intern ran the discussion, and while the turnout was lower than prior book clubs, I heard she was fantastic with the teens and the ones who came had a good time.

Friday was our first storytime without our regular story time staff member, who took a job at a new library. It sounded like the kids had a blast though, as their laughter could be heard from the meeting room all the way in the children's room. I love when I hear them having fun!

Overall, it was a quieter week, but one where more and more kids were beginning to earn their prizes for reading. I've had a number of youth and teens finish the reading programs already, and now they're all in the midst of doing the passive programming portion of the summer reading club -- something I'll talk about more in depth soon.

This coming week, since it's a holiday week, means we'll either be slammed with patrons or will be very quiet. I've structured the programming to reflect this, choosing to show a couple of movies, rather than engage in staff-heavy programming.

Let's go to Canada!: A Tween Program

This year's cooperative library summer theme for children is "One World, Many Stories." As part, I've incorporated a few (and I emphasize few) programs that involve travel or foreign activities. I'm not a stickler for themes, as I think they can be a bit stifling, but I took today's tweens-only program straight from the theme: Canada Day Celebration!

Like the US, Canada has a big independence day celebration, held every year on July 1. We got in on the celebration by offering up three crafts and a treat for our attendees.

First up, treat time!

I purchased a maple leaf shaped cookie cutter from Amazon, and it cost me less than $1.50. My coworker volunteered to make the cookies, which were simple sugar cookies, and I picked up 2 cans of white frosting and 2 shakers of red and white sugar crystals. Total cost was under $10, and we had between 80 and 90 cookies.

I set the supplies out and let the kids make their maple leaf cookies however they wanted. Most looked like this:


Then it was on to one of three crafts. Myself, along with a coworker and my intern, manned the craft stations. I handled the fireworks bookmarks. For this, I cut black construction paper into 1/4 strips. I hole punched the top of each and gave the kids red and white ribbon to tie. I ended up doing a lot of the tying but it wasn't a big deal. They wanted their ribbons to look like my sample.

I then let the kids lay down thick lines and shapes in glue however they wanted to. Then, they put their glue-covered black paper into a paper box lid and were given free reign over glitter.

Their creations ranged from things that kinda looked like the fireworks I made to something else entirely. I am a huge proponent of letting the kids make whatever art they want to make, so as you can see, it was a little everywhere. And little did I expect how popular this craft would be -- some kids made 4 or 5 book marks because they loved the free access to glitter.



The next craft the tweens did was make Canadian flag magnets out of fuse beads. My lovely intern was given the assignment to figure out how to turn red and white fuse beads into a Canadian flag, and she did an amazing job. We had only two of the small beds to do the flag making on, so this station was a slower one, but the kids who did it got a kick out of their final products.

Apologies for the blurry photo! If you're curious, that flag is made up of 93 red beads and 60 white, with 17 columns and 9 rows. I've included the actual pattern below (thanks Mary!):

We did the ironing of the flags when the kids finished putting the beads together, and then they were able to pop the small magnets on the backs themselves. A lot of the tweens found this to be the harder/more frustrating craft, but they all loved the end result (and let me tell you how fun it is to see a bunch of Canadian flags around the library).

The very last craft we had was a beaver pin. I found the pattern for this one right here. I picked up all of the small beads at Walmart, but let me tell you this: finding the pins was not easy. I went to multiple stores and had multiple trips before finding enough of the right size pins. Because the right size base pins were essential to fit all of the beads onto. But! There was triumph and we had all of the appropriate pins come program day.

They turned out extremely cute, and for the kids who didn't get a chance to finish, we were able to pack up some of the beads and pins for them to take home. Some of the kids wanted to make other things with their pins and again, we were game. One girl made herself a gold medal, even.

We had both guys and girls come out to the program, and it was enjoyed equally by all. We ended up having 22 kids, which is smaller than duct tape was, but still an extremely good showing for limiting the program to 9-12 year olds only. Plus, we got to celebrate Canada and the kids really got a kick out of it. It was familiar enough and foreign enough to them to be a total blast. I think the total cost was around $50 or $60, and we had a ton of left over beads and craft supplies for another program in the future, since we planned for almost 40. You could do this program on the cheap, especially if you have a lot of the supplies already.

Summer Reading: Week Two

I'm a week behind in wrapping up summer reading, so this week, there will be two in a row. This is for week two, where we got to do a lot of really exciting programs.

First, the stats: I took my counts last Thursday morning, and we had 75 teens signed up for summer reading, 252 youth age 4-12, and 51 pre-readers. That's nearly 400 people signed up already, which is almost what last year's numbers were all summer long, and we're only on week two. It feels wonderful!

We ran our regular Lego and Games club on Monday, where we had 27 attendees (up from the week before). I keep this program extremely low key, and I think that's part of why it's successful. We don't have a theme, and all I do is dump out a couple tubs of Legos on the floor and drag in a box of board games. This time, no one played games but instead, they all concentrated on making epic Lego creations.

On Tuesday, we had one of our performers who is brought in through our library system. We do all of our big programs outside under a tent, since our building's meeting room has very limited capacity. The weather looked chancey all day, but we had 97 attendees. The storyteller was a bit of a disappointment, saying she didn't need anything when really she needed a sound system (which we have). She wasn't super engaged with the kids, and she wasn't observant of what was going on around her, either. The sky grew very dark about half way through the performance, and our summer camp crew (which brings in 25-30 kids to the event) just left. After they left, so did everyone else, and the performance was cut way short. It was a little embarrassing on our end, but I'd rather the 97 attendees be safe from the weather than stay and not be. We ended up having some wicked storms from that point onto the rest of the day.

On Wednesday, we had a combined tween/teen program, where we brought in author Siobhan Vivian to do a writing workshop. There was a lot of stress to get her out here, actually, as the weather that impacted our performer on Tuesday also impacted her flight into Wisconsin. After a lot of tears and profanity on the phone, we snagged her a very early flight to Chicago Wednesday morning, where she rented a car and drove up. She did a program at three libraries that day, and I'm extremely pleased to say we drew 29 attendees. Each person who came who didn't already have a copy of her book Same Difference was able to get one, and they all got them signed after the performance. I also made everyone mini notebooks to keep, which featured the program name, date, and thank yous to our sponsors. I plan on talking about this event in more detail in another post, since it was such a great event.

After the event, I took a small group of my book club kids out for dinner with Siobhan, as well. They talked about the restaurant they ate at, and the way Siobhan talked to them about it made it so cool for the kids to see how questions can spark creativity and stories. It's one of those things I know the kids won't forget -- for them, this was meeting someone famous, and it was meeting someone who was interested in hearing their stories, too.

Thursday, I did an extremely easy program for just the teens -- ice cream creations. I cleaned out our staff kitchen, which had many half-full boxes of candy, cookies, sprinkles and more from various programs, including the candy bottle guessing game, then I made a run to the store to pick up 5 large tubs of ice cream. I also picked up a jug of chocolate sauce and a couple other sauces, a bunch of bananas, and laid out bowls, spoons, and scoops. Then, we opened the doors and told the teens to have fun. We had 29 show up for this super easy and relatively inexpensive program, and many of these attendees were the kinds of kids we'd never see in the library. All for free ice cream, indeed. But you know what? It got them in. We had a little drama with this program in policing the age of attendees, as the very young kids wanted in; we tempered this by telling the older kids to bring a scoop of ice cream out to their siblings after they ate.

Friday was our storytime, but I was on a plane down to New Orleans for the American Library Association conference, feeling pretty pleased with program attendance and signups this week. I feel like I know some of the areas where I can improve for the future, but for now, it's straight on to week three, which you'll hear about in the next couple of days.

Summer Reading: Week 1

The first week of summer reading ends today, and I thought it would be worthwhile to look back on everything that's gone on at the library this week and check the raw numbers.

First, a little explanation: I'm running three programs this year. One is for pre-readers (those birth through 4), youth (4 to 12) and teens (12-18). I'm pretty forgiving in flexibility, as I let 4 year olds do the youth program, 11 and 12 year olds do teen, and I've let a 19 year old do teen, too.

For pre-readers, parent and child work together to complete 30 activities together. You can check out the activity sheet right here. It's meant to give them literacy, print awareness, sound appreciation, and other activities to work on as parent-child and reward them for it.

For youth, children get a reading log, with each image indicating 15 minutes of reading. They can read alone or with a parent/sibling and audiobooks count. Their reading log looks like this. Both youth and pre-readers can also complete weekly check lists of activities, and all eight weeks of activities look like this.

Teens also get reading logs, and theirs are in 30 minute increments. Their logs look like this. They can also complete a teen summer passport, which is the same idea as the youth activity logs, except they only get one log all summer long, which looks like this.

After almost a week of summer reading club, we have 40 signed up for the pre-reader club, 193 signed up for the youth club, and 66 signed up for the teen club. Can I say that last year, at the conclusion of the summer reading club, there had only been 56 teens total? I'm thrilled with this week's turn out for them, especially.

During the summer, I have activities planned for every day of the week -- Mondays through Fridays, so this was the first week we were went through all of them, and they were a blast. Here's what we did!

Saturday
We had our kick off event, wherein we brought a magician, and we had a huge sign up push. We had 55 attend the magician's show, which was a little bit of a bummer number for me -- but the magician was excellent, and I would, without a doubt, bring him out again. He was great with the kids, and his humor worked perfectly for the adults, too. And boy, were my kids eager to be volunteers for his tricks!

Monday
We had a laid back, all ages program of games and legos. I pulled out a box of board games and dumped out my legos, and let the kids go to town. We had 20 attend this program, where I laid on the floor and played a pretty amazing game of Memory with a 6-year-old and a 12-year-old. I was happy to announce I beat the 6 year old, but the 12 year old completely kicked my butt.

Of course, all of the kids who made lego creations got to display them in the children's area -- and that is, without doubt, my favorite part of lego club. I didn't initially bring out the index cards for kids to put a name for their creation down, but they begged me for them, so I obliged.

Tuesday
We had our big all ages program in the outdoor tent in front of the library. We had an art party, where four staff members brought a craft for the kids to do. It was a bit of pandemonium, as we had 110 attend this program.

Since this year's theme was world travel, each craft had something to do with a foreign country. The kids made god's eyes (Mexico), paper crocodiles (Australia), fans (Japan), and harlequin masks (Italy, pictured at left). My coworkers did an amazing job helping the kids out, as I was busy running around making sure everyone was covered for supplies, ducking in and out of the building to tackle any questions that came up.

I would do this sort of program again, but I'd definitely set up more tables. I was going to be thrilled if we had 60 or 70 attend this program, so 110 was excellent. This program was quite inexpensive, as most supplies were on hand already. I believe I spent $40, and I think another coworker spent about that. For 110 kids, we spent about $.50 a kid, which is amazing.

Wednesday
This was my tweens-only program -- the first of its kind at the library. I decided it was important to give 9-12 year olds their own program this year, with activities geared only toward them. Sure, it's a lot of work to do this much, but the return on investment was insane. Our first program? Duct tape creations.

I planned for about 20 kids. When I went to Walmart for tape, I thought I'd gone a little overboard on buying tape. You can make that judgment to the right here. I personally knew how to make wallets and flip flops, so I pulled out a couple examples and raided our recycling room for cardboard. I laid it all out, and I told the kids as they came in to go to town, but they could find me to help them any time.

They knew EXACTLY what they wanted to do. It was incredible to see -- wait for it -- 40 kids (!!) show up for this program. Most knew what they wanted to make and went to town, while others came and had me walk them through (or in some cases, make for them) wallets and flip flops.

I love this age group. They are completely respectful and caring, and they all cleaned up after themselves. They were incredibly creative and funny, and spending an hour and a half of them was a blast. I'm so eager to see them again next week.

Perhaps what struck me as most valuable about this program was that it drew in a significant number of Hispanic youth. We have a large Hispanic population in town (over 30%), but they don't come much to library programs, for many reasons, including that they believe it costs money, that they aren't welcome/there isn't anything for them, that they need a library card to participate, etc. I made it super clear in classroom visits that there was no sign up, no cards necessary, and everything was completely free. To see so many of these kids at the library really made me feel good. I hope this is a trend that continues all summer long.

Thursday
Today was my laid back day at work -- just the teen book club meeting. Though I should say it was, indeed, my favorite program because I love these kids to bits and pieces. They're smart, thoughtful, and love to talk all things books.

This week, we talked about Siobhan Vivian's Same Difference, as Siobhan is coming to the library next week. Talk about a book we had a lot of great things to talk about. Usually, book club discussions run about 30 minutes, and then my teens want to do something active (and, as always, I oblige). This time, we talked an entire hour about this book. The kids loved this book, and they thought Emily (the main character) was one of the most realistic characters they'd read in a long time.

Perhaps what made this particular book club meeting special for me was that I could give my kids this book to keep. With the grant I won, I purchased a ton of these books, and I was able to let them have them. Then, a few others asked for a copy for a friend who would be coming to the event next week, and it felt so nice to say yes, yes, yes.

When we finished our "formal" book discussion (which is never formal), we talked about other books we love. One of my girls gave rapid reactions to a pile of books she'd checked out a couple weeks ago and read, and it was amazing; she'd give her gut reaction then a single statement after which was hilarious. And in the last few minutes before the library closed, I saw all the girls check out piles of books before heading home. Whoever says teens don't read....has never spent time in a real library.

Friday
Obviously, I can't post about it since it hasn't happened, but this is our storytime day. One of my coworkers does our storytimes, but I suspect turn out will be pretty good, since it's the first time back in a month.

Other things
Amid the programming, I found time to put together a few more reader's advisory guides for our teens, which you can find here. I wrote up guides to sports, mystery, and historical fiction this week, and my intern (I'll talk about that in a second!) made up guides to science fiction, fantasy, and fairy tales/fey stories.

I've made up a schedule to keep the teen blog and facebook up to date and active, and I've really enjoyed it. It feels like having a schedule makes it more active and makes me more engaged, too. This week, I posted teen book reviews, linked to a story about free audiobook downloads for teens at sync, and put a contest up for a signed advanced copy of Ellen Hopkins's Perfect.

This summer, I have an intern, and she has been a complete and total life saver. I threw her right in, and she's been so good at helping me with programming, with reader's advisory guide creation, and with the myriad of activities I tackle in a day. She's been instrumental in getting my teen summer school mobile collection processed, and she'll be key in making that a success, too. You'll hear about that more in July! She's doing it for free, but her resume for graduate school and portfolio for a future job will be great -- she's making reader's advisory material because (wait for it) she's reading the books, too, which as we sadly know, isn't the case with all youth/teen librarians.

All in a week's work, and only 7 more weeks to go!

Summer Reading: A Passive Program

We're doing three summer reading programs for kids this year, separating pre-readers (birth-4), youth (4-12) and teens (12-18). Those who fall in between are welcome to choose which they want to join.

I won't go into details about the program structure yet, as I want to see how it plays out for a couple weeks first, but one of the things I'm doing for both the teens and the youth of all ages is a weekly passive program that looks like this:

I bought 8 water bottles that were sold with the summer reading theme for kids and 8 for teens (the dark blue nalgene bottles). I then went to the grocery store and bought a ton of treats -- goldfish crackers, m&ms, skittles, gummy words, animal crackers, etc. In each bottle, my volunteer and I counted out candy, something different for each of the 8 weeks of our program, then closed the lid. Every week, the kids and teens each have a shot to win the bottle of candy for guessing the number inside. Ah yes, it is tricky, since the kids can't actually see what's inside, so they have to believe in the sign:


Every Monday, we'll go through the responses and the kid with the closest answer wins.

There are pre-cut sheets of paper asking for name, phone number and guess for them to use right at the desk, as well.

I already know this is one of my favorite programs this summer. Why?

It gets the kids and teens to come in every week. It's exceedingly simple, requires virtually no staff time (except for when we counted out the candy and when we'll go through answers) and yet, it's one that even today, on our kickoff date, we had a number of participants in. Everything's already in the bottles and sorted, so it's a quick Monday morning prep program, and I cannot wait to present the winners their little souvenir each week.

As I mentioned, today was our kickoff for the program. It was cold and rainy, and since our events are outside under a tent, the turnout was a little disappointing for our magician. But the magician was excellent, and the kids who were there had a total blast. The jokes were just right, too, that the adults could enjoy them. I had one mom tell me how fabulous the performer was, too, which I relayed to him afterward (when he gave my intern and I some other magic tricks).

So far, sign up looks good, and there are almost as many teens signed up as littler kids. My goal's to double the size of teen participation this year from last, and we're already at nearly half of last year's numbers on our first day.

Preparing for summer reading club (a story in photos)

Preparing for summer reading -- which is less than one week away for me -- looks a little like this:


I'm getting in a lot of relaxing outside in the beautiful heat (the 90+ degrees and humidity are things I look forward to after a few years in Texas).

Then there's a lot of this, too:


All of those books are the galleys and finished copies of books I'm extremely fortunate to receive throughout the year for review consideration. A small number are signed, will be used for book club, or are appropriate for the mobile collection I'm building. But the rest? They are the prizes for my teens this summer. Virtually none have copyright dates before 2009 and many aren't even out yet, which means these kids are getting books they want to get their hands on.

It also means my bookshelves at home have breathing room for me to fill up with books I am dying to buy but have put off:

An entire shelf and a half!

But let's not fool ourselves. This is how it really is, both the shelves and myself in this final week before summer reading kicks off:

Summer Reading: Teen Edition

It's that time of year: the frantic time known as the weeks before summer reading. This year, I'm in charge of the entire shebang for kids age 0-18, so it's even more work than when I've done it before. But I think it's going to be mega rewarding, as well.

I'm putting together my presentations for classroom visits, and I wanted to share my middle and high school presentation. I'm pretty pleased, and as you can see, we've got insane programming and prizes for the kids -- much of which was donated or paid for through the YALSA/Dollar General grant I received. How lucky!

Again: I'm never going back to Powerpoint. Prezi is really the best way to give an in-person presentation, and it's way more fun to put together.

Teen Summer Reading Club 2011 on Prezi