Summer 2022 was a whirlwind and I’m super glad it’s over if I’m being totally honest. My library was extremely busy all summer and I was also the branch representative for the summer challenge committee. We were able to do some really cool things but the planning and the stress that went into certain things was a lot.
Our summer challenge spanned May 15-July 31. Last time I looked at reports for the district, my branch had the highest number of completions (we had 1,752 rewards redeemed according to the report I ran) so woohoo! That also means I spent a lot of time organizing prizes and making sure we had good books to choose from available. Thank goodness my community is constantly donating current books in brand new condition that I was able to use all of those for prizes to keep up with our demand.
My favorite programs we did this summer were the book festival that my wonderful coworker planned and that I assisted with and my school-age art programs. We did programming but we’re still figuring out what works best for our current crop of teens so we didn’t have too much of it.
The book festival was SO COOL. We had amazing authors come to present and talk about reading and literacy. Our author lineup was: Bob Shea, JaNay Brown-Wood (who also did a staff training), Kevin Sherry, and….KWAME ALEXANDER!!!
Kwame was the only author geared towards our teens and adults and it was so incredible listening to him speak about his journey and answer questions from the crowd. He was incredibly nice and took pictures with everyone and told us about some really cool things he’s working on. I can’t wait to see it all when it’s released!
School starts relatively early in my city – they went back on August 8th. With the new school we are getting adjusted to what after school looks like, which currently is a large number of middle schoolers hanging out! Right now the big project we are beginning to work on for that is finally redoing and updating our Teen Space so that it’s cozier and inviting to our teens. Fingers crossed we are able to figure it out and get it put together quickly so they have somewhere nice to chill! Are there any great setups/decorations/things that have worked great for your teen space? Please let me know!
Good luck to everyone who has yet to begin the school year and hang in there to anyone else who already has!
Teen Services Underground 