As we say goodbye to the school year and hello to the summer, the Delaware County District Library is diligently preparing for our annual Summer Reading Club – themed “Camp DCDL” for 2023. Readers of all ages can participate, and it’s as easy as one, two, three.
First, simply start reading! Kids 0 through 17 have a goal to read 12 hours between May 30 and Aug. 12. You can use a library log to track your reading or write it down in a notebook. Tracking 15 minutes at a time is the easiest, but you can write down more or less based on each of your individual reading sessions.
Adults have the goal to fill out a bookmark with either four books they’ve read, four programs they’ve attended, or any combination of both. Bookmarks can be picked up in a branch or downloaded from www.delawarelibrary.org/summerreading.
Second, stop into your home Delaware County District Library branch. It doesn’t matter if you visit Delaware, Orange, Powell, Ostrander, or the new Liberty Branch Library. If you’re a kid participating in the reading challenge, come collect prizes when you reach six and 12 hours. At six hours, participants get a bundle of local coupons for food and experiences and a miniature flashlight! When the challenge is complete, at 12 hours, come back again to collect a free book of your choice to keep.
When an adult bookmark is completed, turn it in at any DCDL branch. You’ll be entered to win our prize drawing. Each bookmark is an entry; so complete and turn in as many as you are able!
Finally, check back at www.delawarelibrary.org/summerreading to see what awesome programs are happening throughout the library. This week we close all locations on Monday, May 29, to celebrate Memorial Day. Storytimes resume on Tuesday, May 30, at every branch. Then, we kick things off with a visit from Columbus artist Bryan Moss teaching teens how to create their own comics on Tuesday, May 30, at the Orange Branch Library at 4 p.m.
Adults may want to learn a bit more about the Maker Studio software by registering for a Vector Design Basics class on Wednesday, May 31, at 5 p.m. at the Delaware Main Library. Or you can choose to bring the whole family out for Madcap Puppets – back again this year with their Fantastic Fairy Tales Puppet Show on Wednesday, May 31, at 5:30 p.m. at the Liberty Branch Library.
Whether you’re camping in the wilderness, in your own backyard, or in an indoor pillow fort this summer, we hope you bring along a good book. Maybe you’ll find one of these titles on your list.
• “Raj and the Best Vacation Ever!” by Sebastien Braun. An illustrated tale for kids about camping. Raj and his dad are going camping. They’ve packed everything they need, and Raj knows they are going to have an amazing time. Once they get there, however, they find they have to contend with wind, rain, and a family of very noisy bears.
• “Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping” by Mélanie Watt. Scaredy Squirrel is back again, this time giving camping a try. Scaredy is nervous. What if there’s quicksand? Zippers could be problematic. Scaredy prepares his essential survival supplies, wilderness outfit, campground mission, fitness training, and more!
• “Be Prepared” by Vera Brosgol. A young adult graphic novel features a misfit girl and her brother who are attending summer camp, where they struggle with primitive plumbing, snobby tentmates, and boys-versus-girls competitions.
• “Camp So-and-So” by Mary McCoy. The letters went out in mid-February. Each letter invited its recipient to spend a week at Camp So-and-So, a lakeside retreat for girls nestled high in the Starveling Mountains. Each letter came with a glossy brochure with photographs of young women climbing rocks, performing Shakespeare under the stars, and spiking volleyballs. By the end of the month, twenty-five applications had been completed, signed, and mailed. Had any of these girls tried to visit the camp for themselves on that day in February, they would have discovered that there was no such mountain, and that no one within a fifty-mile radius had ever heard of Camp So-and-So. Read for a darker twist on your YA camp story.
• “The Troop” by Nick Cutter. In an adult fiction story of “camp gone wrong,” discover how nothing can prepare a young group of Boy Scouts and their scoutmaster for what they will encounter on a small, deserted island, as they settle down for a weekend of campfires, merit badges, and survival lessons. Everything changes when a haggard stranger in tattered clothing appears out of nowhere and collapses on the campers’ doorstep. Before the night is through, this stranger will end up infecting one of the troop’s own with a bioengineered horror that’s straight out of their worst nightmares.
If you have a question that you would like to see answered in this column, mail it to Nicole Fowles, Delaware County District Library, 84 E. Winter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740-362-3861. You can also email your questions by visiting the library’s web site at www.delawarelibrary.org or directly to Nicole at [email protected]. No matter how you contact us, we’re always glad you asked!
