And so the craziness begins…

or Summer Reading has officially begun!  Our decorations are up, signs have been hung and book lists have been copied.  Because everyone knows that parents will always ask about a school booklist (even when it’s not required)!  We’ve gotten about 210 sign-ups through our pre-registration at school and I hope this week we get a pretty big crowd coming into the library to register!  We’re off to a great start – Summer Reading began about 45 minutes ago and we had families come in right at 9:00am to register.  Our first program is tomorrow night which should be a lot of fun – a husband and wife juggling team!  We’re lucky to provide a family program once a week during our program – these programs are ones we pay professional entertainers for and hope for a large crowd to get our money’s worth!  We also offer workshops and book discussions all summer long for kids from Kindergarten – 8th grade.  And on top of it all, we offer our regular story time schedule too – 6 different story times for different age groups, with a few extra special themed story times for the summer.

I love the hustle and bustle of summer reading and I love getting a chance to interact with kids that I only see during the summer – these are the kids I try and connect with, hoping I can find the right book for them; something they’ll want to read and be excited about.  And of course, I’m excited to see all my regulars too – these are the kids that love to read and can’t wait to sign up for every single thing we’re doing this summer!  This summer will be extra busy as I’ll be heading out to ALA in Las Vegas for a few days to present our Emerging LEaders project – if you’re at ALA , stop by Friday afternoon and say “hi”!  To all my children’s librarian friends – have a great summer!  And for all of you out there, wish me luck!