The Sedona Public Library is inviting kids under the age of 17 to take their first steps into a much larger world of reading with the 2024 Summer Reading Program. This year’s theme is “Adventure Begins at Your Library.”

Last year, Arizona children read a combined 103,749,238 minutes in summer reading programs according to the Arizona State Library.

“The theme’s centered around outdoor activities along with adventure and exploration,” teen librarian Jordan Prouty said. “So try to promote books that might be more like fantasy or historical fiction, or grander adventure tales.”

The program will start on Saturday, May 25, with a pool party at the Sedona Community Pool from noon until 4 p.m. This year’s celebration will coincide with the pool’s opening day and the pool will offer free admission all day, along with a DJ and hot dogs and lemonade for the first 400 arrivals. Also making his return poolside will be magician Jolly Roger, who will perform at 2 p.m.

Beginning on June 3, children over 3 years of age can log every 20 minutes of reading, or every book for those under three years of age, with a sticker on their provided chart, or, for those ages 12 and up, the Beanstack app. Upon registering for the program, participants gets one free child’s admission to the community pool and one free book from the youth section of the Friends of the Sedona Library Bookstore. “Each time you earn 10 stickers, come in to get a prize ticket for the prize drawing,” the SPL informational packet states. “Half-way prizes may be picked up anytime after you have completed 25 stickers on your reading log.”

Participants also can earn more tickets by completing the Summer Adventure Bingo Activity that encourages children to visit public sites across Sedona and the Verde Valley.

“The initial goal is 1,000 minutes … you can keep going past the 1,000 minutes to get more raffle tickets for every 200 minutes read,” Prouty said.

Summer reading logs can be turned in from Saturday, July 27, through Saturday, Aug. 3, and Prouty recommended redeeming logs at the SPL main branch. Prizes will be awarded during the Summer Reading Celebration on Wednesday, Aug. 7, from 3 to 5 p.m. at SPL.

“It’s a time to get some food, hang out, we’ll pull a raffle ticket from each of draw bags and then announce the kid who wins it,” Prouty said.

“We have incredible prizes this year,” SPL director Judy Poe said. “So many local businesses have chipped in to give the kids all kinds of prizes for keeping up with their reading. We’re grateful to every single one of them for that summer reading as a community event because it takes a community to raise kids.”

Poe added that this type of programming is intended to counter the dreaded “summer slide.”

“The summer slide is the tendency for students, especially those from low-income families to lose some of the achievement gains they made during the previous school year,” Poe said. “So public libraries help kids continue to read over the summer and avoid the summer slide so that when they go back to school, they don’t lose their reading progress and are at their current grade level.”

For more information about SPL youth events, visit sedonalibrary.libcal.com.