Reading program rounds up pool party to end the summer

Morrison Library’s Rompin’ Stompin’ Reading Roundup summer reading program was a galloping success, according to new librarian Barbara Cornett.

A total of 84 children attended at least once, and an average of around 60 regularly attended the weekly sessions, according to Cornett, who said the goal was to instill a love of reading to every child who participated.

Cornett, a retired librarian with the Warren County School System where she worked for over 30 years, has been librarian at the Morrison facility for around three months, and says she has thoroughly enjoyed working with children during the summer reading program.

The library held its awards day and swim party Tuesday, providing a variety of activities for the kids, including swimming pools, bubble machines, squirt guns, along with features that sprayed water via a number of methods, all of which worked to keep the kids cool, and wet.

The event began with storytime at 10 a.m., after which the kids moved outside to the swim party. Following this, the program moved inside the Ruritan building for a pizza lunch and the presentation of awards and prizes.

‘Today is a celebration of the six weeks we’ve spent encouraging them to read,’ Cornett said. ‘We wanted to end the program with a bang and provide them with a fantastic and fun time.’

Cornett said literally hundreds of books have been checked out, averaging around 200 per session. Some of the older participants were measured by the number of pages read, rather than per book, since some books are longer than others.

‘The winner today will have read 3,000 plus pages,’ Cornett said. ‘We have several who have really been reading and have done a good job. And though we want them to have fun, our purpose today is to continue to instill the idea that they need to read.’

Though the main goal was to cultivate a love of reading, participants were offered other activities as well, that fit in with this year’s Western-inspired theme.

‘We had a craft every day for them to take home and work with, or we made it here and they took it home,’ Cornett said. ‘Everything tied in with the theme. The first day we had a bandana and we made a horse from that bandana using rubber bands. We made cowboys from discarded tissue rolls. We made a cow puppet, anything that tied in with a western theme we tried to do.’

The Rompin’ Stompin’ Reading Roundup theme was used statewide, according to Cornett.