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So Much to Do from our Children's and Family Services Department

3 years ago

Joellyn Murry knows that the programmers in her department worked very hard to set up many special events for July and August to make Let's Read, Liverpool! great for all.

From the sidewalk stroll available to all 24-7 on Second Street to the carefully crafted programs you'll find on our calendar page, the Summer Celebration of Reading 2021 marches on with style.

I wrote a column about these two months of activities published in the June 23 newsprint edition of the weekly Eagle News community newspaper.

If you missed it, read on:

IMG 1916Our Second Street sidewalk obstacle stroll can bring books and action together. 

By MARK BIALCZAK
LPL Communications Specialist

Children, families and caregivers will find a whole lot of joy in the programs carefully put together for this summer’s visits to the Liverpool Public Library’s Dinosaur Garden lawn.

“While planning our summer program, we realized that what our families really want this year is to simply get out and celebrate the end of a year of isolation,” said Joellyn Murry, LPL coordinator of Children’s and Family Services.  “With that in mind, we met with local school librarians and came up with the idea of reminding our children, parents and community members of the simple joy of stories -- a celebration of reading. No reading logs to fill out, no accounts to create online, nothing but a simple pledge to take time this summer to read.”

The family events portion of Let’s Read, Liverpool! includes a variety of themes that will lead participants to the significance of books.

“Working with the idea of celebrating reading, we decided to plan our programming around celebrating certain books, authors and illustrators, while also encouraging exploration of our entire collection,” Murry said. “We begin with a series called Liverpool Explorers, which is designed to spark children's curiosity with a variety of topics, like inventors and inventions, and then encourage conversation with related books and activities. We also have a series of Maker Clubs in which we will be making crafts based on different book series, like American Girl and Rainbow Fairies, illustrators, like Eric Carle and Lois Ehlert, or popular topics like dinosaurs, unicorns and superheroes. Then we have our book celebrations, which will have activities, games and crafts centered around popular books series like Harry Potter, Wings of Fire, and Ranger's Apprentice or celebrating the entire works of certain authors like Mo Willems.”

New events include a five-day Storytelling Camp led by Liverpool Central School District reading specialist Mary Rys; Choose Your Own Adventure; and Reading Rainbow.

“In Storytelling Camp, children get to explore limericks, tongue twisters, poetry and short stories. Choose Your Own Adventure presents children with the opportunity to talk to other children, tweens and librarians about their interests and then get suggestions for the next book to read. Reading Rainbow is a drop-in program showcasing the diversity of our collection, providing both a mirror for our children to relate to and a window to expose them to other cultures and experiences,” Murry said.

And, for pure fun, “Our sidewalk obstacle course will return this year, this time with obstacles based on favorite books of the staff at LPL,” Murry said, “and our StoryWalks will be making appearances throughout the community. Both passive programs encourage parents to share stories with their children while spending time outdoors!”