Library expanding summer reading locations

Emmet O’Neal Library will host its usual summer reading program this year, but it’s also launching a new Satellite Summer Reading initiative.

EOL will send librarians to Brookwood Forest Elementary, the Irondale Furnace Trail and Overton Park to encourage reading in those areas.

The program can help kids avoid the “summer slide,” a loss in academic skills between school years, according to children’s librarian Rachel Hebert Owens.

The library “offers incentives to keep kids in books all season long, so when they return to school, they’re right on pace and ready to keep moving forward,” Owens said.

Every Wednesday afternoon in June and July — except July 4 — children’s librarians will go to BFW to check reading logs, recommend books, give reading prizes and help readers choose free books they’ve earned.

On Thursdays at 9 a.m., library storytellers will offer Books in the Brook, an all-ages storytime in the BFW garden.

Books in the Brook will also be held at Irondale Furnace Trail on June 16 at 10 a.m. and at Overton Park on July 21 at 2 p.m.

The Hot Off the Press book club for rising third- to sixth-graders will take place at BWF on June 27 and July 18 at 2 p.m. The club requires online registration.

Library Out Loud, a storytime for rising kindergarten through second-graders, will be held at BWF on June 27 and July 18 at 2 p.m. No advance registration is required.

To register for summer events, go to al.evanced.info/eolib/lib/eventcalendar.asp. For details on summer programs, go to eolib.org/documents/2018summercalendar.pdf.