By Will Morris
Rowan Public Library

It feels like just yesterday I wrote to you all about spring planting and gardening resources at Rowan Public Library and here we are with summer right around the corner! I don’t know what sort of time warp brought us so quickly through March and April into mid-May, but I do know that RPL is your destination for educational summer fun and reading programs throughout the upcoming season.

The end of the school year is a time of celebration as everyone looks forward to the freedoms of warmer weather, water slides and time outside. That long American summer does come with a downside, however. Due to having a summer break that is often over a month longer than other developed nations, educational policy experts in the United States have long worried about the “summer slide.” This refers to the deterioration of student learning over the school-less summer months, especially in keys areas like reading comprehension or math. This slide exacerbates already existing educational disparities and has been a major area of public policy concern since at least the 1980s. Although recent educational policy literature calls into question the extent of the summer slide, few scholars doubt that some learning loss occurs, and teachers spend much of the early fall playing catch-up to remind students of skills that may have atrophied over break.

Why this brief detour into educational policy? Because library summer reading programs grew in response to the summer slide. RPL aims to take a bite out of seasonal learning loss by offering a range of activities for all ages. Our Summer Reading program rewards readers with incentives for every hour they read. Patrons interested in taking part in Summer Reading 2025 can register online (https://bit.ly/RPLR2) or in person at any library branch. Everyone who registers automatically wins a prize! Once registered, users may log their reading hours online or on paper. Children ages 0-10 win prizes for every five hours of reading while teens and adults get entered into prize raffles at 10 or 20 hours, respectively.

To get folks registered for Summer Reading and get a head start fending off that summer slide, each library branch will be hosting a Summer Reading Kickoff event in the coming weeks. Come out to your closest or preferred branch and launch into summer with fun activities, storytimes and games. You can register for Summer Reading 2025 while you are in the building. Kickoffs take place at RPL East in Rockwell on Saturday, May 17, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. RPL West in Cleveland will host their kickoff party on Wednesday, May 21, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. with RPL South in China Grove following suite the next day, Thursday, May 22, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., as well. RPL Headquarters in Salisbury will host their kickoff party on Saturday, May 31, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

To learn more about Summer Reading 2025 at RPL, go to https://www.rowancountync.gov/1580/Summer-Reading.

Of course, RPL is still your hub for the latest books from your favorite authors. James Patterson’s “Paranoia” and Danielle Steel’s “A Mind of Her Own” just hit our shelves and have already made their way into the hands of eager readers. Come check ‘em out and, if you register for Summer Reading, those hours enjoying your latest cozy read could also help you win a prize! For more information, visit the website at www.RowanPublicLibrary.org, call 980-432-8670, or visit your nearest RPL branch.

Will Morris is a librarian at Rowan Public Library.