Library wraps up Summer Reading

By BRITTANY FHOLER 
Cove Leader-Press 

The Copperas Cove Public Library held a pizza party for teens on Wednesday to celebrate the end of its Summer a Program. 
About a dozen teens and pre-teens, ages 11 to 15, showed up for free pizza provided by Domino’s Pizza, as well as soda, games and prizes. 
Each week, teens met on Wednesday for fun activities as part of the Summer Reading program, while they kept up with their reading logs. 
The first week saw teens learning how to draw Manga with professional artist, Mr. Pitts. The second week, teens learned about OzoBots from Barnes and Noble. During the third week, teens built their own rockets to launch the following Tuesday. The day after the rocket launch, for the fourth week, the teens learned how to juggle from professional juggler Matt Tardy. For the fifth week, teens just met for fun and games and for the sixth week, had fun with crafts. This week, the final week, saw a day where the teens could just relax and hang out. 
The purpose of the Summer Reading program is to prevent the backsliding of reading skills, so participating kids are encouraged to keep a reading log. For the younger kids, reading 500 minutes (or eight plus hours) earned them a spot at the Level 3 Pizza Party held Thursday. For the teens, reading five hours earned them a special prize. 
Because of the fact that at this age, some teens aren’t as in to reading as their peers might be, library staff chose to allow all of the teens to attend the pizza party. 
“We just want to get them in the library and spark their interest in something, so even if they are not a voracious reader, they are welcome,” Library Assistant Martha Dye said. “If they are a voracious reader, we’ve got lots of books, you know.”
One teen had logged approximately 86 hours of reading, but wasn’t at the pizza party. 
Dye said she thought the Summer Reading program for the teens went well. 
“We try to do something different each week because the teens, they’re diverse and they start to form their own interests by this age, so we try to do something different,” Dye said. 
Some of the kids have been the same kids but some of the kids only came to specific sessions that drew their interest. 
Volunteer Heather Rash’s son, Michael, 13, has gone to nearly every session. Since the first session, where teens received their own sketchpads to practice their drawing, Michael has been drawing all the time, his mom said. 
Dye said the first week with the drawing had the largest turnout with the second largest being when Barnes and Noble shared about the OzoBots. 
Rash said she thinks the recent renovations in the library, including the teen section, have played a part in getting teens to come to the library. 
Her son especially likes going to the teen section and hanging out with other kids his age. It gives him something to do while she is busy helping out with the younger kids during the summer program, Rash added. 
“I’ve been able to go about doing what I need to do to help Martha and stuff and not worry about him getting into trouble,” Rash said. Rash has been a library volunteer since 2013, mostly helping out in the summer, but said she hopes to volunteer more during the school year as well. She said she likes that it’s a safe place and lets her stay a little active. 
The Library will continue its teen program beyond the summer months, with its Teen Manga Pizza Anime Gaming Reading Club which meets once a month on the third Thursday at 4:30 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. Each meeting is sponsored by Domino’s Pizza.
The next meeting will be August 15. 
“We talk about what books they’ve been reading, so it gives me some good feedback on what books to buy for the teens,” said Library Director Kevin Marsh. “And a lot of the times, they’ll discover that other teens are reading the same books or like the same books that they do, so it makes a really good social interaction. Sometimes they come to that and they don’t necessarily all know each other so it’s a good way to socialize, talk to other people that actually read books.”
Some of the books being discussed at next month’s meeting include “The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise”, “The Year’s Best Military & Adventure SF Volume 5”, “Ranger’s Apprentice: Book 12 The Royal Ranger”, and “Need”. 
Marsh said participation has been pretty strong this summer. 
Having a club like this one for the youth gives them a sense of inclusion, he said. 
“It gives them a place to be and not be expected to be adults, because they’re not yet, and not be treated like kids, because they’re not that either- they’re half way in between,” Marsh said. “And it’s good to have something that allows them to express themselves and talk about the things that they like and explore what it is that they like. I think a lot of inspiration for future career choices can come from reading.”
For the kids not so interested in reading, there are still activities for them to do, with the OzoBots and other things. 
“We’ve been getting a lot of feedback from the teens about how much they’re enjoying the robot programs, so that’s something we’re going to look at closely and see if we can do more with that,” Marsh said. 
Teens do not need to sign up to participate in the Teen Club, he added. 
On Thursday, the younger Summer Reading participants also had a pizza party to celebrate their summer reading achievements.