It’s important for children to read throughout their summer vacation to maintain the reading skills they have developed during the school year, and to gain new ones.
Our public libraries are great places to help them accomplish these goals. Not only are our libraries free, but they offer incentives for children of all ages to develop and nurture a love of reading.
As a model for your child, be a reader and be a library user.
Make your child one, too.
“Paws, Claws, Scales and Tales!” is the Tucson-Pima Public Library’s 2006 Summer Reading Club’s theme for children up to age 12.
Through their reading, children earn donations that will be made to local animal shelters, become eligible for prizes, and can participate in events at the libraries.
There’s a special program for ages 12 to 18, also, with Sidewinders tickets and other prizes, as well as special events.
What memories of using a library and of books you read as a child do you have? Share them with your children.
And you also may want to share two new great books about libraries with them.
“Beatrice” may be a big-eared, brown-and-white dog, but she’s really an obstinate little girl who gives her older brother a hard time when he has two tasks to accomplish (Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Lynn Munsinger, Scholastic Books, 2006, $15.99).
He needs to do some research at the library for a school assignment while also baby-sitting Beatrice. She doesn’t want to go and she’s a superpain once he drags her there.
The illustrations of the suffering brother and the insufferable little sister are terrific and the transformation of Beatrice to a library lover, thanks to a terrific librarian and storybooks, is a satisfying one.
For older readers, there’s Richard Peck’s “Here Lies the Librarian” (Dial books, 2006, $16.99).
The local library has long been closed after the librarian had been found “checked out under the card catalog” and then buried with the epitaph “Here Lies the Librarian / After Years of Service, / Tried and True, / Heaven Stamped her OVERDUE.”
It’s when four lovely, young librarians appear that all kinds of transformations take place in this small bit of Americana.
This is a terrific story, vintage Peck, with quirky characters and laugh-out-loud happenings.
Do you have a book you’d like to suggest or a question for Tucson Unified School District librarian Peggy Larson? Contact her at thereadinghour@tucsoncitizen.com.