Why did the chicken cross the road?



To get to the library and sign up for the “Laugh Out Loud” TD Summer Reading Club.



“If laughter is the best medicine, then we are going to have a lot of healthy young readers this summer,” says Joanne Head, coordinator of children’s services at Western Counties Regional Library. “Puppet shows, clowns, magicians and carnivals are some of the programs that are going on at the library over the summer as part of the Laugh Out Loud summer reading club.”



The Children’s Summer Reading Club is for children from birth up to the Grade 6 level and it offers prizes and reading rewards. Participants are given an activity card, a log book, stickers and a bookmark when they register.



“This is a fun way for children and youth to keep up and improve their reading skills over the summer months,” Head says.



The activity card has three reading goals from which to choose – 10 hours, 20 hours or 30 hours of reading, broken down into four “happy faces” per hour. Every time a child completes an activity such as reading a book and having a book read to them, reading for 15 minutes, reading to someone else, taking a friend to the library, writing a story or listening to an audiobook, he or she fills in a happy face.



As the child works towards the finish line there are reading rewards along the way. When the reader reaches a prize block, he or she can come into the library for a prize. When the child reaches the finish line, he or she receives a FastPass to Upper Clements Park and a chance to win great prizes including the grand prize of a bicycle. The program runs from June 22 through Aug. 22. FastPasses will be given out beginning on Aug. 1. Local library branches will also be offering programs throughout the summer following the Laugh Out Loud theme.



To find out more about the Summer Reading Club, visit any one of the 10 branches of Western Counties Regional Library in Digby, Shelburne and Yarmouth counties. For more information on summer reading programs and the TD Summer Reading Club, visit www.td-club-td.ca.



The reading club is an award-winning initiative of the Library and Archives Canada, Toronto Public Library and TD Bank Financial Group. Locally the Children’s Summer Reading Club is being supported by Upper Clements Park, McDonald’s Restaurants in Shelburne and Yarmouth counties, Wilson’s Home Hardware in Digby, For Kids Sake of Wilson’s in Barrington Passage and Manser’s Bike Shop in Yarmouth.



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