Kent Regional Library: Don’t put down those books yet!

Summer may be half over, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to get involved with the Summer Reading Program at the Kent Regional Library.

“It’s never too late!” said Len Litster, the children’s librarian in Kent.

This summer, the King County Library System, including the Kent branch, is hosting the reading program, as well as a series of other activities, to keep kids of all ages engaged in reading, even when school is not in session.

According to Litster, the summer months can lead to students drifting backward academically unless they keep their brains active.

“It’s found that if you don’t do anything you lose some of what you learned,” she said.

To encourage kids to keep reading, the library is giving any participating child who reads for 1,000 minutes over the course of the summer an art kit, as well as the chance to win a new laptop computer.

The program is open to all children from preschool to sixth grade.

At the halfway point of 500 minutes, kids get a coupon for a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut, but the real goal is to get to 1,000.

“When they get all they get all the way to the end they get the final prize,” Litster said.

According to Litster, anything the kids read count on their minutes, “from a cereal box to Harry Potter.”

Catherine Myers, 7, just finished her 1,000 minutes Friday, hammering out the last two hours before she and her parents visited the library to turn in her log book and pick up her art kit.

Myers said her favorite books this summer were the Geronimo Stilton books about a mouse who solves mysteries, though she and her family also enjoyed the Goosebumps books and Berenstain Bears.

Catherine’s parents said they were proud of their daughter and pleased the library offered a program like this.

“It’s just awesome,” said Todd Myers.

“The more they read, the better they get at it,” added Leslie Myers.

Amy Welch, who was attending a program with her three children, said the summer reading program works well for both parents and adults.

“I love to encourage my children to read and they love to earn the incentives that go with the program,” she said. “I think it’s such a great way to get the kids and family involved.”

The library offers programs for teenagers as well as elementary-school kids.

This year, the library is hosting a contest in which any teenager who reads and reviews three books for the library gets a book of their own to keep. All of the review forms also are entered into a drawing for another laptop computer.

“We encourage them to read more and get more books,” said reference librarian Olga Volodkova.

The library also is encouraging teens to make video reviews of the books for a chance to win a “Flip” video camera. All of the videos will be shown at an End of Summer party Aug. 13 at the library.

Along with the reading programs and contests, the library has also been hosting a series of events, including a puppet show last week which drew about 60 kids, as well as a magician the week before, which Litster said brought in about 150.

The final summer event at the library is Captain Bogg and Salty, a crew of musical pirates, and is scheduled for 1 p.m. Aug. 13.

Senior Library Manager Pauline Warden said so far this summer, the library is drawing between 1,700 and 2,000 people each day and the reading program has 1,638 people signed up at the Kent library alone (41,515 in all of King County).

“It’s a really busy library,” she said.

Warden said the overall goal was just to keep kids reading, even when they are not in school.

“We try to keep the parents and children and teens – everyone – engaged during the summer,” she said, turning to wave to Catherine Myers as she walked away with her art kit.

“And they’re so darn cute,” she said.

The Kent Regional Library is located at 212 2nd Avenue N. it is open from 10 a.m. – 9 p.m. Monday – Thursday, 10 a.m. – 6p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1 – 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information visit http://www.kcls.org/kent/ or call 253-859-3330.