Peninsula Public Library in Lawrence celebrates its young readers

The Peninsula Public Library in Lawrence said goodbye to summer with its annual Summer Reading Party to celebrate the reading completed by the children who took part in the seasonal program.
Library director, Carolynn Matulewicz, said that this past summer's “Oceans of possibilities” theme drew great results.

“It was a very good turnout for everything this year,” she said. It was a great theme, we had a program on the beach, and they had a scavenger hunt with seashells. “We had all kinds of programs and activities throughout the summer. This is a combination of all their reading and hard work, they get to come and party.” 

The end-of-the-summer party has been a tradition at PPL for more than 30 years and keeps the kids motivated to read over the summer. The festivities this year included painting, balloon animals, a trivia contest, chalk drawing, and more.

Many of the kids in attendance were at camps all summer and as camps came to a close, it boosted turnout for the party. “Each year it's been getting better,” said children’s librarian Patricia Murphy.

Among many of the library regulars are six-year-old, Aaliyah Nunn who has always been an avid reader, her grandmother, Valerie Hinton said. Her favorite summer book this year being, “Dragons eat noodles on Tuesday.”

Nunn is home-schooled by Hinton, who has brought Nunn to the library for most of her young life. Hinton said events such as the end-of-summer party are a great way to get young readers active and social.

“Children have to have the best of both worlds. I consider myself fortunate to be able to offer myself to her, so she can actually have that engagement, socializing, and creativity,” Hinton said. “When you have kids that are not in action that's concerning, because what that segues to other issues with health and socialization issues. Sometimes you just have to let them go.” 

Hinton applauded the job the library did with the summer reading program and praised Murphy, Matulewicz, and trainee Henna Ross for the string of events the library hosted through the summer. “They put together a fantastic summer calendar for the library for these children,” Hinton said. “We’ve been coming here forever.”

Librarian Linda Abraham said that the end-of-summer party really ties together the success of summer reading. “This is what everybody looks forward to,” Abraham said. “We had a summer reading launch party and got a lot of people signing up throughout the summer and we had over 200 signups. Our goal when they're babies is to bring them to programs and to interact with them to build a lifelong love of learning and reading.”