The 2008 summer reading program at the Chilton/Clanton Library has come to a close for the year. The kids who were part of the program enjoyed reading books of their choice. To help in keeping their young minds creative and interested in reading the library had a theme of Catch the Reading Bug, which allowed them to place butterflies, lady bugs, spider, spider webs and other insects with little notes encouraging reading.

This year the library was very happy to see that even more children were able to make it out for the program. According to last year’s records there were only 100 children. That number was up this year with a grand total of 125 kids attending the reading program. Since the count of kids were up so was the amount of books read this year. The total number of books was up 24 from last year making the total 1224 books read by our local kids from grades kindergarten through sixth grade.

“We were very proud to see that many kids in here getting books off of the shelves and making an effort to read and learn,” said Sudan Zekl, who is in charge of children’s services at the library. “The kids were great and they seemed to really enjoy getting to take breaks on Wednesday’s when we would have special guest visit them here at the library.”

Every Wednesday afternoon during the month of June the library had some sort of entertainment scheduled for the kids to enjoy. The programs included people like Anne Chancey Dalton, a local author who talks about her books, while she is dressed in one of her characters; Bob Sanders who does Magic by Sander and The Fable Factory who acts out tales for the kids to enjoy.

This year the three acts were well loved by both the children and the parents who go to participate in the program.

“The Shows were very interactive with the kids and they even got to take part in a few parts of them like in the magic show with sanders and a few of the fable stories with The Fable Factory,” Zekl said.

Every year the program has been given money from the Clanton Kiwanis Club to help in getting the kids what they need to keep up their reading skills over the summer. This year they contributed $500, which was used to get the program started and the supplies needed to reward the children for their good job.

“We are very thankful to the Kiwanis Club for their help and it is just so nice that there is someone out there who wants to make sure that kids still get out and read books,” Zekl said.

Other people who helped make this years program possible were Peoples Southern Bank, who donated a saving bond for the grand prize winner and Wal-Mart who donated a gift card to help in buying others prizes that are needed to award the students who do extra well in the reading program.