It's the little things...

We're trying out a couple of new things with the Summer Reading Club this year and I think they're going to be really neat. Our theme this summer is Master the Art of Reading and it's all about art. Last year we covered one wall in the children's department with blue paper and cut out Ellison shapes that the kids wrote their names on and then glued up on the paper. This year our super awesome graphic artist created this picture frame paper:


Instead of putting up a shape, anyone who signs up for our Summer Reading Club may choose a shape and decorate it however they like. Many have written their names in their frame, some have drawn pictures, some have colored in the entire frame. The kids are having a great time being creative and it looks great. It's so colorful and it's going to keep looking better and better as more kids sign up!

We're also trying out a couple of non-prize incentives, one of which is our gong. Yes, that's right. We have a gong. Actually, we have two gongs, both brought in by staff members. Whenever a kid completes the Summer Reading Club, they get the chance to hit the gong. We brought it with us on our visits to the schools and preschools and the kids seemed pretty wowed by it. They can hit it one time, as loud or as soft as they would like, and that way the whole library (and possibly the whole town depending on how hard they hit it...) will know what an awesome job they did finishing the Summer Reading Club. Nobody's finished quite yet, so I can't tell you for sure that it's awesome, but I'm betting it will be. I'll report back later in the summer when, hopefully, the library will be ringing with GONNNGGG after GONNNGGG.

Little things can make a big splash and hopefully that will be the case this summer!