Thank you to all our Summer Star Readers

dlr Libraries would like to thank the many, many children who took part in the Summer Stars Reading programme in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County this summer and to congratulate those who were invited to dlr LexIcon for our finale, prize giving and celebratory event. 

Everyone knows the importance of reading for children and the many benefits reading brings. Improved literacy levels, confidence, firing of the imagination as well as pure enjoyment and relaxation, are just some of the benefits reading can bring. This is the 5th year that dlr Libraries have run a Summer Reading challenge and every year, more and more children take part. In previous years this initiative was called the Summer Reading Buzz. In 2016 the reading programme went nationwide and nearly all public libraries in Ireland became involved. We hope this programme will continue to grow and expand, as fostering a love of books and reading is a really high priority for all of us who work in public libraries.

In 2013 we had 600 children sign up for the programme, in 2016 we had more than double that number, with 1,773 completed reading cards returned, that’s 6 books read on each reading card. Over the course of summer months dlr Libraries had huge numbers of children’s books checked out across our 8 branch library network. Between June and September we had 85,326 checkouts and 57,520 renewals = 142,846 Total Child books issued during the three month period. That’s a lot of books! Everyone who took part in Summer Reading 2016 are winners.