Summer Reading!!!

It's hard to beleive it's that time again - summer! At least the weather is finally feeling like summer.

Summer was always my favorite season for reading.  Growing up, our house had a beautiful screened in sunporch with a comfy recliner where I would spend many hours of my summer vacation reading book after book.  I would take the bus to  the West Roxbury Branch Library at least once a week and come home with an armload of books to last the week.  Many of my favorite books were read on my parent's sunporch - The Chronicles of Narnia, Half Magic and others by Edward Eager, The Witches of Worm and others by Zilpha Keatley Snyder,  Gone With the Wind, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Agatha Christie, The Once and Future King, and lots of gothic romances.  I never had required reading for summer until high school - and then only going into freshman year and for A.P. English.  I just read for the sure pleasure of it and was able to explore all kinds of books on my own.

One Word, Many Stories is the theme for the Massachusetts Summer Reading Program 2011.  The library will be offering many opportunites for summer reading pleasure, from multiple copies of the middle and high school reading lists to story times for various ages.  Students will be able to register for the summer reading program on-line and log their books and submit book reviews by logging in to http://www.readsinma.org/.  We will be having incentive prizes for all ages as well as weekly raffles of backpacks filled with books and prizes.

The library will be hosting a variety of performers beginning with our kick-off event on Monday June 27 at 4:30 p.m.  Alex the Jester will provide fun for all ages at Oakes Ames Hall.  Other Mondays we will have storytellers, musicians, magicians and puppets!  All programs will be on Mondays at 4:30 through August 15th.

While our summer programs are always well-attended and a great success the hope is that all of this will make the Ames Free Library a summer destination for all!  While you come to enjoy the music don't forget to check out a book.  Summer should be a time to relax and get lost in a great book, so remember to stop by and see me.  I hope everyone gets the time to relax and enjoy some great books this summer so make sure that the library is your weekly summer destination.  It's the best time to read!