Summer reading at the library
You all know that keeping up with reading over the summer guarantees good results when your kids or grandkids are back at school in the fall. And I hope you’ve noticed that Monoporead, MHPL’s traditional summer reading game, is going strong already this summer. We make it easy, and free, for you to keep everyone well supplied with a wide variety of books.
It’s also important that you model good reading habits. Does your family know you look forward to stealing a few minutes with a book? Do you read together at bedtime or for a quiet time in the heat of the day? Do you talk about favourite books or what you’ve learned from a new book? All of these things encourage literacy, and literacy supports every other kind of success.
Pick up your summer reading material when you bring your young ones to the library for Monoporead. In fact, why don’t you read the same category as your child, letting their roll of the dice determine your next book? Your books are longer but you don’t have to finish a book if it’s not interesting, or you don’t have time, you can always return it when your little one plays again. Or create an account in the library catalogue, Bibliocommons, and save unfinished titles into a reading list.
Monoporead categories include disasters, mysteries, biographies, animals, and more. If your child watches you look up books on these topics in the library catalogue, Bibliocommons, they’ll also come to understand that books are organized, that there are tools to find exactly what you’re looking for, and that once you know which one you want you can find it yourself. If you’ve never done this before and ask for help from a library staff person, your child also learns that it’s OK to ask for help to learn new things.
Let’s say your child rolls and lands on “disasters and survival.” In Bibliocommons, I’d search for keyword “disasters” which finds 1,021 items. Then I’d limit my search to just the library I’m standing in, so in my case excluding books in Duchess or Irvine or the other Shortgrass libraries, 399 items are in Medicine Hat.
Next I’d limit my search to paper books, excluding audio books and DVDs and ebooks, now I’m down to 248 books. Then I’d limit my search to just “adult” materials, ending up with 116 items. I could keep on limiting down, using ratings, geographic places, or specific kinds of disasters. For any book your child or grandchild is reading, you can find the adult equivalent and then talk about what you’re each learning. I can’t think of a more pleasant way to make sure the next generation is off to a good start.
Shelley Ross is chief librarian at the Medicine Hat Public Library.