National Readathon Day 2016

Since this is also one of two posts before May 21, I wanted to alert all of you about a new event sponsored by the American Library Association and Penguin Random House called National Readathon Day.  It began last year as an event sponsored by Penguin Random House and ALA has teamed up with the publisher to sponsor the second annual event.  This year, on May 21, everyone is encouraged not only to read but to also promote and/or raise funds to support early childhood literacy.

There are three ways to participate in National Readathon Day.  First, is to read and raise money for the amount of time read.  All funds will go to the Every Child Ready to Read initiative. Second, is to host or join a reading party on that day; it’s essentially a more social version of the first way.  Lastly, is simply to promote the event using the hashtag #Readathon2016.  This will help spread word and help the project go and provide better promotion for future years. Follow this link to learn more.

Keep in mind, early childhood literacy is important.  Children need to see the importance of reading early in life.  Modeling reading and reading to your children is a good way to encourage a love of reading.  And those who learn to love reading have been proven  to have greater vocabularies upon entering kindergarten and to stay readers throughout life.  These children also tend to have better critical thinking skills.

Will you participate in some fashion?

On other notes, April was a whirlwind of activity.  I went as saw the stage play “Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain Live” at the start of the month.  This was promptly followed by two conferences, an open house at my library, a tour group visiting my library, and a weekend meeting of the friends group.  And for a LBPH library (library for the blind and physically handicapped), we had a massive amount of reference questions in April, more than three times the usual amount.  Between all of the above and cataloging, it seems those were the only three things I accomplished at work!  So far, May has been just as busy!  Plus add wedding planning to all of this!

Next week, I’ll post a review for the second book in Lori Benton’s Pathfinders Series (I reviewed the first last year and am currently reading the new book).

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