It’s Up, Up and Away for the 2013 Summer Reading Club for kids at the Okanagan Regional Library.
Whether your child is interested in things with wings, superheroes, the secrets of the stars or weird weather, there will be a program that suits them during this exciting summer program.
Fun contests, activities and guest speakers encourage kids to read the summer away and help prevent learning losses that occur when they don’t take part in educational activities.
Registration for the program has begun and will continue throughout the summer.
Magicians and painters are among those who will be visiting the South Shuswap library this summer as part of this year’s summer reading program.
While traditionally the summer reading program is only open to kids from kindergarten to 12 years old, parents can now have their babies and toddlers take part as well.
The Read To Me program allows younger children to take part in the events while having parents, brothers or sisters read them.
Each child who registers will get a booklet to keep track of the books they read and a bookmark. Once they have read a book, they get a sticker.
There will be a number of competitions and contests throughout the summer, including a sunflower-growing contest that will require participants to water their plants each day.
Each week the sunflower would be measured.
The library will also be celebrating its reading program with a list of performers scheduled to visit throughout the summer.
Kicking off the entertainment is award- winning Norden the Magician, who will be performing some mystifying tricks for the children on July 2 at 2 p.m.
Lynn Erin will explore “Up, Up and Away,” in a watercolour session.
Also on the horizon is an origami session with Eiko Uehara at 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 17 and Leigh Schaffer will introduce children to the world of science with Owlie Growlies by examining owl pellets to see what they eat at 11:30 a.m. July 24.
A comic drawing session with Kevin Adamson takes place at 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 31.
The Summer Reading Club, which is offered at all branches across the system, saw an increase of 16 per cent last year.
ORL executive director Stephanie Hall explains the importance of libraries in building good readers and notes how the process begins early.
“Reading to children from zero to six improves brain development… Tracking shows they do better in kindergarten, at Grade 3 and so on,” she says.
As well, Hall noted four in 10 Canadians lack the fundamental literacy skills needed for job mobility and that higher literacy is associated with higher employment levels and earning.
“Poor literacy is associated with poor health and higher literacy is associated with higher levels of community involvement and volunteerism,” she said.
All events are free and registration is done through the library located in the Blind Bay Market.
For more information, check out the ORL website at orl.bc.ca.