Red Rock News
Date: August 3, 2007
This summer’s reading program, “Get a Clue @ Your Library” is enjoying wonderful participation with over 260 youth ages 3 – 18 reading and reporting activities they are completing for the program. In conjunction with the reading program, children and teens have enjoyed coming to classes, activities and special presentations at the Library. Opportunities for learning to juggle, cook or learning to draw cartoons and Anime’ have been available to kids and teens of all ages.
Ronald McDonald’s magical “Bookin’” show kicked off the summer program in May. Sedona’s own Tom & Shondra performed in their own musical show, “Suzie & Professor Know-It-All”; Jan Sandwich of Phoenix performed as Mother Goose; Norton Family Entertainment from Cave Creek, Arizona presented the “Zinghoppers” show; Prescott’s Sticks and Tones presented a bilingual musical program entitled “Name that Book”; the Sedona Model Railroaders Association club presented a model train exhibit; and Flagstaff’s Chuck Cheesman presented his musical show “Dancing with No Shoes On”.
Many children reading with the Summer Reading program this summer have decided to set personal reading goals and monitor their progress by keeping track of the number of books they read or time they read each day or week. Readers receive a prize after reporting their first 5 hours of reading. Independent readers have reading related activities to complete and record in a reading log they receive upon registration. Every 10 activities they complete earns a prize. Younger children who register for the program as “Read to Me” readers, may read to a parent or older sibling or have them read to the child. Every 15 minutes of reading is recorded, and every 2 hours of reading completed earns the “Read to Me” reader a prize.
The Summer Reading program began on May 23 before most local schools were out for the year and has been enrolling participants since that day. But school will be starting again soon, and the summer reading program is soon to end. Wednesday, August 8 is the final day to report any reading, collect prizes earned and the last day of the reading program.
A final program event and award party to recognize all participants in this summer’s reading program will be held on Saturday, August 18. Funds granted from the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records under the Library Services and Technology Act will allow the Library to present this program by Out of Africa Wildlife Park of Camp Verde. They will present a program with some of their animals at 10:30 AM. A party with refreshments for all registered participants in the summer reading program will be held shortly after the animal program. Reservations are necessary to attend these events. Register
On another note, the Library’s newly designed website has now gone “live.” After a year of work redesigning the site, we are very pleased to finally roll it out and hope that it serves our users well. There is a new look, new features, opportunities for user feedback, and even online book clubs and newsletters. Please take some time to look it over and next week, I will have a full column on the various features. Also, if you have the time, please reply to our request for your reactions to the site. It is intended to be a dynamic website with information offered therein changing on a regular basis. Further, the Teen pages are still being designed and we will roll those out in about one month. Go to www.sedonalibrary.org to see what we have done! We hope you like it.
