The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

The Big Sandy Library’s summer reading program is called Camp Kindness. The summer schedule includes Monday’s Community Day. Dianna Keane did a team-building exercise at 1:00 on June 5th to start the summer. Dianna Keane said, “I’m doing it the first day to kick off the library summer reading program, and we’re doing a bunch of activities and team building exercises that talk about kindness and how we work together and how we communicate and how do we use our words for good and how long you talk?” On Monday, they will learn about places in our community at 10:30. On the 12th, they will be touring the Big Sandy Post Office, and on the 26th, they will tour First Bank.

On Tuesday, it is Teen Tuesday with an activity for teens at 1:00. Wednesday’s Storytime with craft @ 10:30 and lunch served by Friends of the Library at 11:00. Thursdays is an Art Hour for everyone starting at 1:00. On Thursday, June 22nd there will be a stuffed animal campout. Friday is Physical Friday, with physical activities at 1:00.

Every age group has a paper to turn in to receive a prize. For ages 3-12, they read 30 minutes to color in a picture. That’s 3.5 hours of reading each week. For each week you complete, visit the library to redeem your reading minutes for prizes. For ages 13-17 must complete four hours of reading each week. Adults are required to read five hours a week. Each age group brings their weekly form to the library to be entered for prizes.

They are going to have baskets drawing. That’s eight weeks of reading, not just reading, but some sort of participation in the library. So it’s going to be a little different. They want you to come into the library. They want people to be involved with a local library or in some way be involved with our local library. Adults are welcome to come to the library during the children’s activities and participate by helping.

I’m reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, and he wrote, “Learning one new idea won’t make you a genius, but a commitment to lifelong learning can be transformative. Furthermore, each book you read not only teaches you something new but also opens up different ways of thinking about 0ld ideas. As Warren Buffett says, “That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.” I’ll be donating Atomic Habits when I’m through reading it. Come on, adults, let us shock our librarian and read this summer.

They will have a kindness tree where we will make a chain by doing acts of kindness. You have to do acts of kindness to get a leaf that will extend hopefully clear across the whole library. The idea would be to take what they learned on the very first day, which was how to be kind. Acts of kindness require planning, but how awesome would it be to have a tree full of leaves at the end of summer?