A nostalgic reminder

of love for reading

Some people are surprised when I say I like to read for fun. After all, I read most of my day at work. But there’s something special about getting lost in a book and moving your bookmark closer to the end each time you pick it up.

I have to admit on more than one occasion I’ve reached the last chapter in a book just to set it aside for a few days because it’s so good I don’t want to finish.

I personally love non-fiction. I guess I got into the right line of work. But it wasn’t always that way. I distinctly remember being assigned a short biography on Tiger Woods in elementary school. I brought a Jack and Annie chapter book which I placed inside the biography so it looked like I was reading about Woods when I was actually lost in the fictional adventure. A real rebel, I know.

My love for reading hasn’t always been the same either. It was cultivated in the public library’s reading program each summer. A couple weeks ago Joa LaVille, youth services manager, was looking through materials from past summers and stumbled upon a commercial I wrote in elementary school as part of the reading challenge. I have to say, I don’t recall writing it, but it brought a smile to my face seeing it years later.

It said:

“I would tell people that the library is a great place to learn new things. My favorite thing about the library is that in the summer you can get prizes for reading. I think that the library is fun because there’s lots of different types of books. I would encourage people to come to the library by telling them that reading is fun and at the library you can read and much more.”

I also ended the note with “I would not like to be on the radio.” That line really gave me a laugh.

Maybe at first my love for reading was about the prizes. In fact, I still have one of the rings I earned. But soon enough reading for fun was a prize in itself. There are few things I find as relaxing.

The summer reading program is a great way to keep students’ brains active over the summer which can help students find more success during the school year. It’s also a way to foster a life-long love for reading and learning.

Summer reading program info

Any age of youth (babies through teens) can sign up to earn points to trade for prizes. The points log works the same for every age while the kinds of reading (or being read to) and the prizes that interest them vary by age. Bingo allows kids old enough to read chapter books to earn extra points. The bingo is a combination of different kinds of reading and other challenges that include writing, art, information-finding and other skills for the student to be practicing in the summer. The theme this year is Universe of Stories.

There will be a writing challenge on this year’s bingo called Universal Story, where summer readers can write about Marshalltown’s tornado and choose to enter their writing to be considered for publication in addition to getting credit for that bingo spot.

More info is on the summer reading page on the public library’s website.

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Emily Barske is the Editor of the Times-Republican

and can be reached at ebarske@timesrepublican.com