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My daughters absolutely love reading! In the past, they have been a part of a library summer reading program. This year, they decided to take part in the library’s summer reading program, Barnes and Noble’s summer reading program, and Half Price Books’ summer reading program. Now that the summer is coming to an end, the summer reading programs are also coming to an end. We have turned in all of their reading logs and tracking sheets, and they were able to get a lot of wonderful prizes due to their love of reading.
They each chose a free new book from a selection of books through Barnes and Noble’s summer reading program.
Half Price Books offered a $5 coupon to each of them for completing their summer reading program. Since the coupons were not allowed to be combined and required a minimum of a $5 purchase before tax (no $4.99 book), we spent well over an hour searching through Half Price Books for them to choose which books they wanted. They also wanted to make sure that the books they brought home weren’t books that they could easily get from the library, so we spent quite a bit of time on my phone searching the library’s book catalog online to see what books were/weren’t available. I told them that I would pay up to $1 each beyond the $5 for any books that they chose, and they would have to pay for anything beyond that. It turned out to be a fun math lesson. They were excited to find a stack of clearance books for only $0.50 each that they were interested in. They ended up coming home with a total of 12 books, and I only had to pay $0.52 for one and $0.49 for the other (so they both kept it under the $1 each over the $5 coupon).
The library summer reading program was a lot of fun! In addition to two free books, they received free tickets to a zoo, free tickets to a children’s museum, free tickets to a baseball game, free tickets to a local pool, free kids meals at various restaurants, and a few small activity packs. We won’t be able to use all of the tickets since some of the activities are hours away and only on certain dates, but we will definitely enjoy many of them.
We were also entertained during numerous programs that the library offered for free throughout the summer. We learned about places to visit, science experiments, bubbles, various animals (even touched a snake, a lizard, and a guinea pig), and more.
Did you know that if you put Pyrex glass inside of vegetable oil in a clear container, the glass is practically invisible? This reminded me of my book Jobs of a Preschooler when the preschooler is a magician trying to make things disappear.
The biggest problem with all of these wonderful summer reading programs is that I need to find a place to put all of these great books! We have become rather creative in our house using half walls and random places as book shelves (in addition to the books cases that we do have). With all of the books that we already have in our house, it amazes me that we still end up at the library at least once a week!
Now that the summer reading programs are coming to an end, we may sign up for the Pizza Hut reading program that they offer throughout the school year. (If you are interested, you can find more information here.) We did this last year, and my daughters were each able to get a free slice of pizza each month during the school year.
It seemed as though yesterday was “book day” because after we visited Barnes and Noble and Half Price Books (to collect my daughters’ books from the summer reading programs), we stopped at a book signing event with multiple authors in various genres. It was a free event open to the public nearby, so I really wanted to check it out. I didn’t go as an author to sell any of my books (they did pay a fee to be there), but we went simply to walk around the various tables, talk to authors, and see the books that they had to offer. All of the authors that I met were very friendly, and I was able to ask a lot of questions. I received a lot of information and came home with a few new ideas.
Have a wonderful day!
Brigitte Brulz 