June has officially begun, so that means that Summer Reading Challenge is ON! Keep track of your daily reading from June 1 through July 31. Summer Reading Challenge is of course for everyone—children, teens, and adults. So we need you to join in the fun!
Read every day and keep track of your reading. After registering for the Challenge online, you can mark each day you read. If you prefer a more analog format, you can pick up a paper log at a library branch and return it when complete.
Every fifteen days of reading makes you eligible for a prize, which you can pick up at your local library branch. There are also activities you can complete for more prize opportunities. Complete ten and you are golden! Check out our Summer Reading Challenge webpage for the whole scoop!
All of it! Every kind! In every format! Audiobooks, graphic novels, cookbooks, manga, magazines, newspapers; it all counts for Summer Reading Challenge!
Did you read to someone—a child, perhaps? That counts for both the listener and the reader!
Finally, we are not looking for a set number of minutes or even hours of reading. Five minutes, ten minutes—however much you want or have time for. We particularly want to help children develop reading stamina, or the ability to focus on reading for increasing periods of time. Very young children may only be able to handle ten minutes at a time, for example. You can take several "reading breaks" throughout the day. After breakfast, before naptime, in line at the grocery store, or at bedtime. It all adds up and it all counts.
Did you know that there is an entire group of NPL staff that work together all year long to make Summer Reading Challenge happen? We will also be participating in Summer Reading Challenge. After all, we can't let our hard work go to waste!
I asked my colleagues on the Summer Reading Challenge team to share what they are most looking forward to reading this summer. Chelsy, Teen Librarian at Donelson, shared with me her family's summer reading lineup. Her son is racing through the soccer-focused Academy series, while her daughter is is really into fact books like Why, How and Wow: Space.
On the grownup side, Chelsy's partner is reading about the Beatles and Bob Dylan in Where The Music Had to Go while she is savoring a poem or two each day from Poetry Unbound.
Jamal, Adult Library Associate at Main, is looking forward to digging into The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny, the third volume in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. HIs current obsession, however, is the fantasy novel This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews.
Gracie, Children's Library Associate at Hermitage, is diving into Bonnie Quinn's How to Survive Camping series. She is really enjoying the summer scaries vibe of campy, cozy, supernatural body horror.
As for me, I am excited to read Ocean Vuong's The Emperor of Gladness, which just came through on my Libby queue!
If you want more recommendations from NPL librarians, all you have to do is ask! Visit one of our library branches. Use our Library Concierge service for personalized reading lists. Check out the Books and More section on our webpage for booklists, and our blogs for more in-depth articles from NPL staff. Happy Summer Reading!
