Library hosts assorted activities for reading week
By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Strathmore Municipal Library hosted a variety of activities geared towards students during the annual Reading Week.
The timing of Reading Week also coincided with Freedom to Read Week, which encouraged library patrons to check out banned and challenged books, aiming to promote discussion and access to information.
“We are doing a kind of passive program called Get Caught Reading a Banned Book, and that is just a fun (incentive) to come in and brag that you were reading one of these banned books,” said Laura Henderson, public services manager with the Strathmore Municipal Library. “That is also the focus of the event on Friday (Feb. 23) as well. It will focus on that freedom to read idea and access to information.”
Feb. 20, being the first day of scheduled programming after the library closed for Family Day, featured an activity to create a mixed media art piece, as well as to write a story to pair with it.
On Wednesday, Feb. 21, students and attendees were given an intro to Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic the Gathering. The event aimed to introduce students to the games, hosted by veteran local players.
“What we love about those adventure games is their basis in literacy. We had a couple of local dads in the community doing an intro to Magic and D&D … definitely those games are geared towards ages nine and older … but we wanted to give kids an opportunity to explore those games with no expectations,” said Henderson. “Some of it is just going into a more organized Magic the Gathering event (which) is great, but maybe if you are young, you do not have a chance to just look at the cards and the game without playing it. This is just going to give (kids) an opportunity to listen and see and ask questions and have no expectations whatsoever.”
Objectively, the library’s programming through the week took on a theme of storytelling and engaging students in several different exercises related to that idea.
Henderson added the library aimed to be able to both offer activities that the community would be familiar with, as well as to take an opportunity to introduce patrons to new things.
“These are also activities that we wanted to put together in hopes of attracting like-minded people so that they can create relationships with others at these events and possibly take it somewhere else,” she said.
At the conclusion of the week, on Feb. 24, the Library launched its new teen book club, Book Dragons, which aims to increase teen programming, as well as to create an environment to encourage like-minded readers to meet. The first book being engaged with by the club is Daughter of the Deep, by Rick Riordan. The club aims to meet every two weeks for interested teens.