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closeYour lively library: Summer means fun at Pierce County libraries
Lynne Zieher
Your Lively Library
Summer Reading is one of the “mostest funest” events at the library, and it has just begun. This year is really great, because the theme is “Be Creative.” It features activities from and about all the arts: drawing, painting and cartooning, music, acting, dancing and writing, which leads to reading.
It all starts with your “Be Creative @ Your Pierce County Library” activity booklet. It’s chock full of puzzles, coloring pages and suggested reading book lists. You can also keep a log of the titles that you read this summer and get funny stickers that mark your progress through your activity book.
Everyone gets a sticker for each 20 minutes read. When the booklet is full — that’s when you get to 10 hours — there are prizes. You have your choice of a free pass to the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium or Northwest Trek Wildlife Park.
Plus, every week, there’s a drawing to win a bright teal T-shirt that shows a silly guy using paint brushes as stilts. There are also tote bags with a dancing elephant.
Subway and the Sprinkler Recreation Center also provide prizes for kids who visit their library at least five times during the summer.
Need more to do? Come to one of the great summer programs at any of our locations. Both our area libraries will have several puppet shows that are always a hit with all ages. The Recess Monkey musical group and Eric Ode will be rocking at the Gig Harbor branch. Jeff Evans will perform his magic act “The Creative Conjuring Magic Show.”
There is also a program called “The Magic Suitcase,” presented by the creative arts company, Live Paint LLC. They explore the world through clues, artifacts, stories and art projects. They will bring their suitcase to both Gig Harbor and Key Center.
Most of the hands-on art projects are designed for children ages 6 and older, but there are some special programs for preschoolers, toddlers and babies.
Brochures that list all the special programs for summer are available for free at all Pierce County libraries.
For the very young
For those who are a bit too young to read on their own, there’s still a way to be part of the summer fun. There is a special “Wee Readers” program just for babies and toddlers. Little ones get their own booklet, and the prize for completion is a rubber duck that squirts water.
Points toward the duck are earned when kids do anything with a book, including chewing on one, although I don’t recommend that.
For teens
There’s a special summer reading program just for teens, “Express yourself @ Pierce County Library System.” To get started, register at www.piercecountylibrary.org.
Activities vary from learning to knit, to building a radio-controlled robot or creating your own Mondrian-inspired masterpiece with colored tape.
If you didn’t have time to read “Breaking Dawn,” the latest in the Twilight series, during the school year, now’s the time. Summer reading is relaxing. Just enjoy the story and don’t worry about having to write a book report.
And teens have a chance to win a Flip Video camcorder. Every 10 hours read gets an entry into the drawing to win. Time reading includes not just books, but also magazines, blogs, texting or visiting Web sites.
We at the library hope you will join us in thanking our summer reading major sponsors, the Rotary Clubs of Pierce County. Their support, combined with our other sponsors, helps make the summer reading program an extra special and fun way to encourage kids to maintain their reading skills over the summer months.
A bit of trivia
Fireworks fact: According to the American Pyrotechnics Association, U.S. fireworks consumption in 2008 was 213.2 million pounds, of which only 26.8 million pounds was for formal displays.
Fireworks fact No. 2: Sad but true — when newlyweds Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette celebrated their royal wedding with a fireworks display in 1774, they inadvertently set in motion a stampede which left more than a hundred of their wedding guests dead.