Ahhh, the lazy, hazy days of summer – unless you work in a public library!

For public librarians, the season revolves around our summer reading programs – and it’s like the Super Bowl, Black Friday and “hoo-hoo big summer blowout” all wrapped into one.

It’s a lot of work, a lot of planning and a lot of fun.

Fostering lifelong library patrons

As the name implies, reading is the cornerstone of summer reading programs. We want preschoolers to enjoy picture books, newly independent readers to find books they can tackle on their own and older kids to pick books they can read for fun, even if that means reading the same series over and over and over.

But the ulterior motive is to create lifelong library users. We hope that by creating fun experiences at the library, they will associate the library with joy, friendship and community. Children who spend happy days at the library grow into adults who use and support their public libraries.

Come for the books, stay for the treasure box

In Temple, we plan for six weeks of activities. We begin the week after school lets out and wrap up around the first week of August. We try to plan a variety of events and programs that will appeal to patrons of all ages. We hold a standing story time on Friday mornings at 10 a.m. that brings in preschoolers and early elementary school patrons. We host drop-in activities throughout the week that we hope will encourage families who can’t make our Friday story time to visit the library when their schedule allows. Kids can also win prizes by finding our hidden picture placed somewhere on the library grounds or answering our fun and open-ended Question of the Week.

So far this summer, we have hosted a chocolate-tasting event (Rolos were the runaway favorite), made birthday cards for Smokey Bear and hiked the White Ledges, a short, family friendly trail that leads to stunning easterly views. We held family bingo, read to our new life-like robotic cat named Buttercup and held a nighttime storytelling event.

Each summer, we hold one major event that we hope will attract people of all ages. This year is no different. On Monday, July 29, we hosted “Owls of New Hampshire,” a live-animal presentation led by a Squam Lakes Science Center ambassador.

All these events happen as kids and families are reading books together. Our circulation soars in the summer, and if you drive by our library, you will see from our board that our readers are halfway to their target of 500 books read as a group during our program.

Small-town connections

One of the many benefits of running a summer reading program in a small town is getting to the know the families that attend our events. We have several families who have been attending our programs for many years now. We get to know what kinds of events they are most interested in (anything with animals!) and what kinds of books they like to read (more unicorn books, please!).

And they get to know us. They look forward to our hikes (and the M&Ms in the trail mix), and can’t wait for our hidden picture to be placed so they can get a chance at choosing a prize from the treasure box if they find it. I have heard that we have “the best” stickers. Of course, it is rewarding to watch babies discovering board books grow into independent readers who recommend books to us (“Scary Stories for Young Foxes” by Christian McKay Heidicker is really good!). But it’s also amazing to watch our youngest patrons discover the world and develop friendships as a direct result of attending library programs.

Beth Crooker is the library director of George Holmes Bixby Memorial Library in Francestown and Mansfield Public Library in Temple.