Published August 29, 2019

KATHERINE HARPER is thrilled to hold a chick during the baby animal petting zoo at the library. (Danielle Masterson Photo)

By DANIELLE MASTERSON

NORTH READING — Now that summer reading is over, the Flint Memorial Library has compiled all the statistics of this extra special program.

Registration in the summer reading program has grown 227 percent over the last seven years to 756 children in 2019. Of those registered, 62 percent actively participated by logging books read or coming in to the library to claim an incentive.

Throughout the summer, kids read 284,171 minutes (4,736 hours). Of that total, students at the Hood School logged the most reading – 1,672 hours. Hound Dogs also led the way in average minutes read per participating student (929 minutes).

The program was most popular among third graders across the school district. They read 63,638 minutes (1,061 hours).

In the Rubber Ducky Club, younger kids claimed 258 stuffies after reading and completing activities every week.

In addition to everyday incentives, children who completed 10 hours of reading, or three weeks of books/activities (kindergarten), earned Topsfield Fair prize packs. This year, 224 will go to the Fair thanks to their reading. That number is up 48 percent from last year.

LAURA MURPHY helps her son Henry Lively go “upside down” during the Rolie Polie Guacamole concert at the library. (Danielle Masterson Photo)

Although summer reading officially ended two weeks ago, we encourage participants to continue reading all summer. If you use the Beanstack app, you’ll be able to tell your teachers how much you read. Your Beanstack account is good all year.

Summer reading was brought to you by the Friends of the Flint Memorial Library, Park Street Veterinary Clinic, Paws at the Park, Wunderlich-Malec, Perfecto’s Caffe – Reading, Royal Air Systems and Bark n’ Roll, who all provided funding for events during the eight-week program.

The library’s final event of the summer will be storytime at Ipswich River Park’s gazebo on Friday, August 30 at 10:30 a.m. Please bring something to sit on.

For more information on library programming please visit https://www.flintmemoriallibrary.org or call 978-664-4942.