Library closes chapter on reading summer
If there was a good reason to keep children indoors during summer it was El Centro Library’s “Reading by Design” program that engaged their minds as well challenged creativity with crafts and stirred curiosity with novel guests.
The six week program concluded Thursday with a dazzling lion dance demonstration by Calexico Martial Arts Academy but the main goal of the 2017 Summer Reading Program was to keep students reading during summer vacation.
“This year was a really good program … we had a gardener, a language arts instructor, a comic book collection merchant and the REACH air medical helicopter that landed right out in our parking lot,” recalled Norma Rosales, assistant librarian.
There were 234 students from across Imperial County registered for the program, remarked Roland Banks, library director. Of that number, 67 students kept reading logs and read a cumulative total of 4,655 books, a near record, noted Banks. Students who kept logs received certificates and were rewarded with $1 for each book completed, in “library money” (for school supplies) as well as entered into a raffle.
“Anybody who does anything in this life has to read first, even a mechanical engineer,” Banks told students waiting for certificates. “You must read, to accomplish your goals in life.”
Some of the first to receive certificates were Abigail, Adalyn and Aiden Boquist. Four-yearold Aiden also won a $25 gift certificate for Red Lobster/ Olive Garden Restaurant. Their mother Jennifer noted they came every Tuesday to check out books and attend Thursday presentations, “The REACH helicopter, we enjoyed that one,” said Boquist. Both she and her husband Troy are elementary school teachers.
“We’re a reading family and during the summer it’s definitely something we do,” said Boquist. “The staff here is great, very open-armed.”
Her daughter Abigail, 8, liked the crafts, making structures from toothpicks and painting sun catchers (optical equivalent of wind chimes to disperse sun days). But she is an avid reader, finishing 24 books, her favorite being, “Captain Underpants.”
Alex Lee, proprietor of the Calexico Martial Arts Academy said he was pleased to see children involved with such a variety of activities at the library. “The lion dance is for any kind of celebration,” he said. “It is to bring good luck, health and abundance.”
Francisco Lozano, one of the lion dancers also demonstrated his martial arts fighting technique in combat with another academy member known as the five animals characterized by quick strikes and capable of stealth attacks.
“It’s fun,” he said. “But it’s kind of hard. We’ll do a parade in San Diego Saturday then a presentation in Pine Valley.”
Accompanying her grandchildren, Mary Rodriguez remarked she was pleased to see so many children participating. “There was lots of crafts and a lot of children helping each other,” she said.
Her granddaughter, Oriana, completed 68 books this summer. “I really liked the reading program, we had bunch of cool crafts,” she said. “I really liked the robot one, where we made robots out of toilet paper rolls.”