Young Readers Celebrate at Summer Reading Festival

Kids and teens splashed down an inflatable water slide, gobbled hamburgers and hot dogs and traded prize tickets for toys at the New Brunswick Free Public Library's Summer Reading Fair on Saturday.

The free fair was open by invitation only to children from the community who have completed and reported on 25 hours of reading or 25 books over the summer.

Children's librarian Sarah Warrick said approximately 100 children qualified to attend, along with their guests, bringing the total attendees to between 150 to 200 people for the fair's 13th year.

This year's summer reading theme is "One World, Many Stories."

Keeping with that theme, the library held a number of children's programs over the last two months that tied into reading, such as making candy sushi for a unit on Japan, cooking and tasting different types of Indian food, or making Native American inspired crafts.

About 400 children signed up for the summer reading program, and in order to have their hours count, had to come to the library to give a brief oral explanation of what they read to a librarian or volunteer, Warrick said.

"They get to talk about what they read and what they felt about it," said library director Robert Belvin, explaining that volunteers were needed to keep up with the volume of kids coming in to talk about their summer reading.

"We literally could not do it without volunteers," he said.

Warrick said a number of sponsors donated prizes through the year to be distributed at different milestones, giving the kids an impetus to keep reading.

Old Man Rafferty's donated the food and chefs for Saturdays, event, Warrick said.

Danayzha McMillan, 9, said she enjoyed reading Judy Blume's "Fudge" books, a series about a set of kid brothers and the good-natured sibling rivalry between them.

"This is a great program, I think other communities should have it," said her mother, Judy.

Judy said that her daughter read willingly and enjoyed it.

"I didn't have to force her," Judy said. "She can't wait until next year."