July 31, 2002
Reading Club keeps summer booked
Theresa Schaub started present version of library group back in 1967
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
To help kids keep their reading skills honed over the summer, the Traverse Area District Library has been offering a Reading Club for the past four decades.
This year, the club has nearly 400 registered participants at the Woodmere facility, with more enrolled at outlying branches.
The game is that students read one or two books weekly and give an oral report about the book to a librarian or library volunteer. Each week, they receive a stamp, bookmark, activity page and some sort of prize for their effort. Prizes include a pass to the Clinch Park Zoo, coupons to area restaurants for a meal or dessert and one free admission to the Civic Center Pool.
The Reading Club allows participants to give up to two reports a week with a maximum of nine reports. The eight-week club winds up in August with a party for participants.
Margaret Barley, 10, is in her second year as a Reading Club member. Barley has completed five reports so far, a milestone that entitled her to a $2 gift certificate to Horizon Books for her efforts.
"I think this is fun because I like to read anytime," said Barley, a fifth-grade student at Immaculate Conception Middle School. "I'm a really big fan of reading and the reports help, I get to kind of imagine the book in a new way."
Each year, the Reading Club sports a different theme, which over the years have ranged from the circus and water safety to Australia and Charlotte's Web. This year's theme, is Zoom Through the Solar System and the children's librarians threw themselves into creating a spaceship environment for the kids.
The Reading Club is a win-win scenario as the librarians and volunteers have a blast all summer listening to the oral reports.
"We have so much fun with them," said Christopher Spear, a children's librarian at the main library on Woodmere. "The best part is either they won't say a word because they are extremely shy - especially with me, a man with a beard - or they won't shut up and tell you everything in the book."
"The thrill is to see the kids who are so enthusiastic about the book," he noted.
Theresa Schaub started the current iteration of the Reading Club in 1967. She remembered that prior to that, the club was held a few summers in the early 1960s. Schaub, who retired as a children's librarian in 1993, has returned every summer since to help with the Reading Club.
She said she revived the club a few years after she joined the library staff in the mid 1960s as a way to keep kids reading through the summer.
"Young children in particular lose some of their facility at reading over the summer and teachers in part want to encourage them to keep reading," said Schaub, who was determined not to make it a contest among participants to see who could read the most books but to have the kids challenges themselves.
Schaub said she also consciously decided to have participants come in to give the reports, rather than merely sending home a folder for students to fill out and bring in at the end of summer.
"I wanted to build a relationship between library staff and volunteers and the kids so I asked for reports," Schaub recalled. "I insisted that it was not a task, but a conversation about a book."
"It is very interesting, even with the very youngest ones, how they begin to verbalize," she noted.