New this year – grown-ups can take part in summer reading as well! It will be fun to see how many participate and how much is read. Plus, as an incentive, we’re having a drawing. The Spokane Public Library Foundation is supplying three eReaders as prizes and, if you participate in summer reading, you have a chance to win. This is how it works: stop by the library and pick up your summer reading card/entry form. Once you’ve completed 15 hours of reading, fill out your form and turn it back in to be entered into the drawing. Easy. (only one entry per person – if you read extra this summer then you’ve already “won” by getting to read more).

Kids and teens, here’s your summer reading to-do list:

1. Sign-up anytime on or after June 2.
2. Check our website for the list of great programs we have scheduled.
3. Stop by the library and get some books (and book recommendations) to set you on the path to reading 15 books or 15 hours this summer.
4. Attend programs at the library.
5. Check out the Discover Earth exhibit at the Downtown Library.
6. Track your progress on the Summer Reading log.
7. Turn in your Summer Reading log and get a book to keep, courtesy of the Friends of Spokane Public Library.
8. Sit back, relax and feel proud of your summer reading progress and why not pick up a book since you’re just sitting and relaxing?!

Why Summer Reading?

1. It’s just plain fun.
2. It’s important, too. Kids who read in the summer are not subject to the “summer slide” where educational progress is lost and teachers and kids have to catch up in the fall.
3. Explosions!
4. Banjos.
5. Magic.
6. It’s not going to take a chunk out of your spending money!

We are grateful for:

1. The Friends of Spokane Public Library – they provide funding for the giveaway books that kids and teens get when they finish reading either 15 books or 15 hours of reading.
2. The Spokane Public Library Foundation – they’re supplying three eReaders as prizes for the adult summer reading program.
3. All the great authors of the many, many books that will be read this summer.
4. All the great readers!

Summer is that magical time of year when children break free of the schedules and constraints of school and replace them with the time-consuming act of running wild and making parents crazy. In defense of adults everywhere, we have risen to the challenge of finding things to occupy children through the summer with a universally interesting subject: Science!

In the Dewey Decimal System, 500 houses science, and 507.8 houses books on “the use of apparatus and equipment in study and teaching.” This is all very clinical sounding until you get to the kid’s section of 507.8. (Just a quick note, some of our libraries shelve nonfiction children’s books with the other children’s books and some with the adult non-fiction section of the library. Please check at the info desk to find them at your library.)

The first detail of note is that this section has a lot of titles with exclamation points. Smash it! Crash it! Launch it! or Yikes! Wow! Yuck! and We Dare You! are just a few examples of these books which must be exciting, or maybe the authors started out as writers for the Batman series. Speaking of superheroes, the book Bubble Monster and other Science Fun sounds like a great villain. In fact, with so many exciting titles, it almost makes a person feel bad for poor old Experiments with Water and Weather Projects for Young Scientists. If the other books are superheroes, these are the old men sitting on the porch down the street.  There are most likely some great experiments in these humble books, but what child will pick that over 202 Oozing, Bubbling, Dripping and Bouncing Experiments. This is a great chance to remember that you cannot judge a book by its cover or maybe even its title as the case may be. If you would rather push the artistic side of science than the gross side (see How does your Mold Garden Grow?), books such as Amazing Leonardo DaVinci Inventions you Can Build Yourself or The 10 Most Beautiful Experiments are great finds.

We hope involving your child in science will help make the summer more bearable for parents. And beyond books we also have an awesome Summer Reading Program planned for your budding scientists. Check it out!

Spokane Public Library is pleased to welcome Mary Starkey onto the Library Board of Trustees.  She was appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the City Council at their May 12 meeting.  Mary fills a vacancy created by Jack Fallis Jr. whose second term on the board expired in March of this year.

Mary Starkey is the executive vice president/COO of Global Credit Union. Outside of her work, Mary devotes a lot of energy to Spokane’s arts: with theater she can be seen onstage in many productions and offstage directing both at Interplayers and the Spokane Civic Theatre. She has also served on the board at the Civic Theatre in the past. She is currently on the board of Terrain. She says can’t remember ever not knowing how to read and always felt like there was never enough to read at home (thank goodness for libraries!). Growing up in a military family and moving a lot meant that the library was always a comforting place that felt familiar when a new city or town was not yet home.  When her sons were young she frequented the Shadle Library where they would check out stacks of books or sit and read there. “Libraries,” she states, “are an entry point for all citizens to get where they want to be, whether it’s professionally, personally or culturally. We need to keep libraries healthy if we want Spokane to be a vibrant community.”

Spokane Public Library is governed by a board of trustees made up of five citizen volunteers who are appointed by the Mayor and approved by the City Council. The board meets monthly to review and approve Library policy and expenditures. Volunteers serve for a five-year term and are eligible to apply for a second five-year term if they wish. You can read about all of our current Board members on our website. The Board of Trustees page also includes information about their meeting schedule as well as links to past minutes and the upcoming meeting’s agenda. Visitors are always welcome at Board meetings.

The number of festivals in the area is beyond count this time of year and opportunities to hear live music abound! Most recently The Inlander’s Volume Festival took over downtown Spokane with 80 bands in 8 venues. Part of the goal was to let musicians know to not speed by Spokane on I-90! They should stop here and play! If you didn’t get enough over the weekend or if you found it hard to be in 8 places at one time and missed some gems you can find some of it on Freegal (all you need is your library card):

• Boy Eats Drum Machine (Portland performance artist, described as doing “electronic wizardry”) – Freegal has his 2010 album: Hoop and Wire
• Deadkill (fast, fist-pumping rock)
• Tweak Bird (rock duo) has three albums available on Freegal: 2008 album, Reservations; 2010 self-titled album; and2012 album, Undercover Crops
• Gaytheist’s hard-rocking 2012 album Stealth Beats

While your sunburn from Sasquatch may have faded by now it’s likely that the music is still reverberating in your head and you’re wishing you could listen to more. Here’s just a few of the Sasquatch bands that can be found on Freegal:

• Foster the People has seven albums available on Freegal
• HAIM (a southern California trio consisting of three sisters that were named one of Entertainment Weekly’s bands to watch this year)
• Neko Case – (just a couple of songs but they’re gems)
• OutKast (there’s a treasure trove of this hip hop duo’s music available)
• Violent Femmes (playing punk-rock since 1981)

The Festival at Sandpoint isn’t until August so there’s time to check out some of the music in advance. Of the bands playing, Freegal has a few:

• Head for the Hills
• Ray LaMontagne
• Montgomery Gentry (tons of stuff available – music and videos)
• Wade Bowen
• Chris Webster

Helping yourself to a sample from the bulk section at the grocery store is called shoplifting but helping yourself to a music sample from the Library’s Freegal program is totally legit. You can download whole songs and albums to keep from Freegal and discover if you really find a band palatable enough to buy more of them. Five songs per week per library card. Over the course of summer that’s a lot of music.