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by Stephanie C., Main Library  The Super Summer Challenge is on the horizon! With about one month of school left and the weather heating up, it's not hard to be dreaming of summer right now. At the City Library we are busy getting ready for our biggest event of the year, the Super Summer Challenge, which runs from June 1st to August 13th. The Super Summer Challenge is our version of a summer reading program, and while reading is a big part of it (because it's important to keep exercising that muscle over the summer), we also incorporate lots of other fun activities into the challenge, so there is something for everyone. I mean that literally. Anyone can participate, it's not just for kids. We have separate challenge trackers for Babies & Toddlers, Kids, Teens, and Adults too! You can get together with friends to complete challenges as a group, or do activities as a family and everyone wins. Most activities don't even require you to be at the Library. In fact, we want you to get out there and explore your city, world, and beyond this summer. What's that you say? Are there prizes? Well, yes, of course! Not only do you get a prize for every level of the challenge you complete, you also get a prize just for signing up. If you sign up early, you'll have your pick between a sticker sheet, enamel pin, or library tote bag for your sign up prize. Here's a sneak peak of this year's enamel pin. Shhh!  An image of the enamel pin design, which features a sailing ship atop an open book and the words Oceans of Possibilities. The top of the blue background reads The City Library, The Salt Lake City Public Library, and the bottom reads Super Summer Challenge 2022. Oh, and in case you haven't heard, we've started doing in-person events again. So, if you do want to hang out at the Library this summer, we've got you covered. You can always find a cool place to hang out, geek out, art out, and check out your favorite books and movies this summer. Starting June 1st, set a course for any City Library location to grab your FREE Super Summer Challenge Tracker, or you can go paperless by tracking your progress online with Beanstack or by downloading the Beanstack Tracker app. Are you still reading this? Nice! If you are really really excited about the Super Summer Challenge and can't wait to tell everyone about it, you might want to consider being one of our Teen Squad volunteers this summer. Tweens and Teens ages 11-17 can volunteer in the Library this summer, helping to sign folks up for the Super Summer Challenge, giving out prizes, and congratulating participants for all of their accomplishments. If that sounds fun to you, head over to our Teen Squad page to learn more. See you at the Library soon!
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by Stephanie C. Main Library  The Super Summer Challenge is wrapping up on August 14th, and that means you have just one more week to complete your challenges, collect prizes, and enter the Grand Prize Drawing! If you don't know what the Super Summer Challenge is, check out this page for the full program details. It's not too late to sign up, and you can log all of the reading and activities you've been doing since the beginning of June. You can sign up at any City Library location, or online here. Even if you only complete one level of the challenge, you can still get a prize, and if you've completed the whole thing, we have a bunch of awesome Grand Prizes that you can enter to win. Guitars, Telescopes, Instax Cameras, and of course books! The SSC is more than just a reading program, The City Library encourages you to get outside, make things, learn about something that interests you, help out a friend, and yes, keep reading too. Don't forget, audiobooks, graphic novels, and web comics all count as reading, in addition to traditional novels and articles. So, what are you waiting for? See how much fun you can cram in before school starts again. It's not too late to have an awesome summer! by Lexi, Day-Riverside Branch  I think it’s safe to say, we are all experiencing some form of digital-fatigue. We’ve been communicating digitally for a long time now, from virtual schooling to relying on facetime to safely see family and friends. If you are craving social interaction that isn’t through a screen, I’d like to recommend the Library’s Teen Pen Pal project. Teens ages 12-17 can sign up to be paired with a pen pal based on their ages and interests. Don’t worry about stamps, you will simply pick up and drop off your letters at any City Library branch. We’ll send it to where it needs to go through our own sweet system of intra-library branch mail. You’ll get an email when a new letter arrives and viola! You’re going back in time and participating in old-timey communication. We’ve already had quite a few teens sign up, so you will get matched quickly to a pen pal we think you’ll click with. Why write physical letters? There are tons of reasons. You can add personalized art. You can meet new friends across the city in a safe way. And, most of all, writing letters is a classy friend’s game. Steve Topfer, associate professor in Human Development and Family Studies at Kent State University actually did a study examining the effects of writing letters on happiness, life satisfaction and depression. A sample of 219 undergraduate students wrote letters and the study revealed that, the more letter writing people did, the more they improved significantly on happiness and life satisfaction. (Read more about the study here). So why not? Sign up for a pen pal here! |