With school ending, it’s time for children to participate in the Brookline Children’s Library Summer Reading Program. This year’s program will run for six weeks – Monday, June 25, through Friday, Aug. 3 – and the themes “Dream Big: Read!” or “Own the Night” will be featured in many of the special events and programs.

Registration for the Summer Reading Program begins Thursday, June 14. Children can sign up at the library and collect a packet including instructions on how to participate in the Summer Reading Program, reading logs, a calendar of events, information on registering for events and activities. Prizes will be awarded, including Toadstool Book Shop gift certificates, for participants who read the most pages or books during the six weeks. Parents can register their children during library hours any time through the end of the program.

All children who have a library card are eligible to participate. Children applying for a library card must be at least 5 years old, and children 18 years old and younger require a parent’s signature on the application form.

Also available will be reading choices for every level reader, from picture books to young adult selections, including the 2012-13 New Hampshire Youth Book awards nominees: Ladybug (preschoolers through third grade), Great Stone Face (grades 4 through 6), Isinglass (grades 7 and 8), and The Flume (grades 9-12). Other selections include books favorably reviewed by Brookline Library staff, children’s book periodicals, including Horn Book and School Library Journal, and nationwide children’s librarians working in public and academic libraries.

This year’s Summer Reading Program will kick off with a performance by magician Norman Ng at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 30, on the Upper Stage at Brookline Town Hall. Ng’s act is a fusion of mind-blowing magic, comedy, and tons of audience participation. Norman will also hold a magic workshop immediately after the show; registration is limited so sign up at the library. More information about the show and the workshop is available at the Children’s Library.

Other Summer Reading Program events include a puppet theater performance, a professional cartoonist workshop, music and art programs, drop-in family crafts and a guessing jar full of goodies. The program concludes in August with the Ice Cream Social, when reading certificates and awards will be presented to the winners who read the most books or pages over the summer. There will also be fantastic door prizes – books, posters, toys – for readers who attend the Ice Cream Social, so everyone leaves a winner.

Why participate in the Summer Reading Program? Studies show that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer vacation than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer. Summer reading programs can help to offset this loss. Research also indicates that students who read recreationally out-performed those who don’t, and a reading program maintains and can actually improve children’s reading skills until the start of the school year.

Summer reading programs are valuable not only in reducing fall off in educational attainment over the summer, but as a means for parents and children to spend time together, by reading books aloud as a family or by listening to audio books during those long trips in the car. Family-friendly literature and audio books suggestions will also be available at the sign-up table.

For more information, please call the Brookline Public Library at 673-3330, or visit the library web page at www.
brookline.nh.us/pages/library/index.htm.

Vicky Sandin is the children’s librarian at the Brookline Public Library and can be reached at 673-3330.