Summer is a great time to encourage the children in your life to read.

Without the pressure of school, it’s an opportunity to embrace reading for the love of it and the way that it can provide answers to all your questions and curiosities! This summer we have an exciting schedule of activities all designed to encourage children to come into the library and learn something new.

The weekly Friday Toddler Time and Saturday Storytime, each at 10:30 a.m. at the Picton Branch Library will continue. Camping 101 Ameliasburgh Branch Library will welcome participants ages 8+ to build their outdoor skills like plant identification, shelter building and making safe campfires on July 18,19 and 20 from 10:30 to 1 p.m. Younger learners can join the Nature Literacy Camp, also at the Ameliasburgh Branch, which will explore nature and build confidence in outdoor skills. Children ages 5- 8 can join July 25, 26 and 27. Register at peclibrary.org or calling (613) 476-5962.

Jake Differ, a Juno-nominated performer, will join us on August 3 at 2 p.m. at the Picton Branch Library. At the Wellington Branch Library we’ll offer an exciting weekly Wednesday series. Community members have agreed to lend their expertise to introduce children to new ideas or hobbies. This includes raised garden bed planting with Carson’s Garden and Market, Candle Making with Chaos and Calm Candles, yoga with Jennifer Cobb, abstract art with Rhonda Nolan, Guacamole making with La Condesa, Making lavender sachets with the Lavender Farm and Bike Safety with Ideal Bike. For the dates and times visit the library website or drop by any branch of the library.

Are you an Impressive Reader? This year we are asking children to share their reading with us as part of the TD Summer Reading Club and we’ll choose one each week for a prize. On August 24 at the Picton Branch Library we will have a party for ALL Impressive Readers – follow us online or ask us for more information about this. While we’re just gearing up for summer we’re also planning ahead for the fall.

Thanks to a grant from the Stark Family Fund through the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area, we are excited to announce that we will be partnering with the Prince Edward 4H Association to offer after school 4H programs at the library in the fall. At 4H, youth learn to “Learn To Do By Doing” and there are so many exciting project possibilities. We’ll be talking about this more in future columns and we’re really excited about this new partnership.

– Liz Zylstra