Chambers County Library completes summer reading program

BY JOHN BRICE

THE LAFAYETTE SUN

VALLEY — Readers of all ages got the chance to participate in the Summer Reader Book Bucks Store at the Chambers County Library’s H. Grady Bradshaw location on 20th Avenue in Valley recently. From July 18 through July 20, readers from all parts of Chambers County who participated in the summer reading program were invited to spend the “book bucks” they had earned over the past few months.

Library Director Mary Hamilton provided an overview of the annual program.

“We started May 25, I believe, was our first day of summer reading. During the eight or so weeks of the summer, we had almost 80 programs for babies all the way through to grandparents or adults,” Hamilton said. “Outdoor movies, crafts programs and performers. So, the summer readers that participated, for every 400 pages that they read, they earned 50 book bucks up to a total of 500. That is the max book bucks. Then we set up the store. It was open Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The readers from Bradshaw Library and LaFayette came here to shop.”

Good reading habits to promote literacy particularly among young people are important, according to Hamilton.

“I think it is important for,, especially kids, to read over the summer because they lose — it is the summer slide,” she said. “They get back to school and they are already behind. So, reading anything is helpful. For us, it doesn’t just have to be books they check out here. It can be books that they have read at home. For adults, it can be e-books, audio books. The kids are reading comic books, that is okay. Pretty much anything that they read, we want them to read for fun. So there is no test, no quizzes, no double checking behind you. It is just for fun.”

Hamilton said the program has been very successful.

“We have over 800 registered readers,” she said. “The first day of the store we had folks wrapped around the whole inside of the building. We probably had over a 150 folks waiting to shop. We have good programs and fun during the whole year. It really inspires us. I feel like kids are still very interested in reading. We do provide a lot of incentives here and at the LaFayette branch. We have a treasure chest, they get medallions, coupons from local restaurants. We do it for adults [too], the adults have fun doing it as well.”