The H. Leslie Perry Memorial Library will help young readers travel back to the Middle Ages through this year’s summer reading program.
The free six-week program provides encouragement for children to keep reading even when teachers aren’t forcing them to pick up books.
“Individual readers make personal reading goals, and those that meet their goals will be entered into the drawing for larger prizes at the final party/coronation,” Claire Basney, the head of youth services for the library, wrote in an e-mail message about the program. “Their names will also be entered in the drawing from which the King and Queen of Reading will be selected.”
Readers who do not meet their goals still may attend the final party and win door prizes.
Art courtesy of Claire Basney, H. Leslie Perry Memorial Library
But the program is set up to deliver plenty of fun and excitement throughout the summer, not just at the final party. Under the medieval theme “Dragons, Dreams and Daring Deeds,” the program includes weekly meetings, story hours and special events.
The program will have three age groups, with each participant asked to make one meeting a week: Read to Me!, for infants through first-graders who are beginning readers, meeting Tuesdays at 2 p.m.; Squires, Knights and Ladies, for stronger-reading first-graders through fifth-graders, meeting Wednesdays at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.; and Joust Read, for sixth- through 12th-graders, meeting Thursdays at 4 p.m. and possibly Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. Joust Read will explore the Middle Ages in more depth to meet the needs and interests of the older children.
Basney hopes to have some age-specific special programs, and she has several special events that are open to anyone, although they’re generally geared toward kids no younger than kindergartners and “precocious preschoolers.”
The special events include two programs from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, “When Aliens Invade” on Wednesday, June 22, at 2 p.m. and “Bat Mania” on Wednesday, July 13, at 2 p.m., and Fish the Magish’s magic show on Wednesday, July 20, at 2 p.m.
The program’s kickoff celebration will be Monday, June 13, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. The final party and the royal coronation will be Wednesday, July 27, at 2 p.m.
Registration for the summer reading program begins next Tuesday at the library on Rose Avenue. For more information, call the Perry Library at 438-3316.