It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Summer Reading!

It’s that time of year again! The displays in your library might tell you that it’s nearly winter and the clothes on your body might be wooly, but your children’s librarian brain is tuned into SUMMER!

We had our first Summer Reading 2023 Committee meeting yesterday. We decided to go with iRead’s Find Your Voice theme. We are so excited about all of the programming opportunities that tie in with the theme. We can highlight so many cool books, too, and amplify voices.

The one thing that’s stumping us a bit is decoration. We like to have decorations running through our whole library to make sure that no one can possibly miss the Summer Reading message! Practically speaking, we want a selfie station at each branch, and three-dimensional items to decorate the top of our bookshelves, as well as some bright two-dimensional posters or graphics for the walls. But what is the best way to depict a voice, or the philosophical concept of finding the said voice that people of all ages would understand?

We’ve been looking around the web today for inspiration, and we’ve found lots of images of voice bubbles and megaphones, and tin-can telephones. We thought briefly about going for retro sound recording machines like record players and cassette players, as well as typewriters, and maybe Morse code machines.  We’re still teasing the idea out, but my coworker Karen drew up a sketch of a pretty neat selfie station idea. We would have a backdrop that says On Air and looks like a sound booth, and we could set up a table with a microphone prop and two seats. We’re thinking about an interactive element, like describing themselves with a word on a post-it, and popping it up somewhere by the station, to encourage their “voice” to be heard.  

We’ll see what ideas we’re able to bring to life over the next few months. Is anyone else planning on using the iRead theme this year? What decoration ideas do you have? Please share with us!