MCLS Summer Reading 2024

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Summer break makes for the perfect opportunity for kids to polish their reading skills and stay sharp for the upcoming school year.

Each summer the Muskingum County Library System offers their Summer Reading Challenge to give readers of all ages a chance to compete for prizes, while reading themselves into new experiences that can broaden their perspectives. 

“So you can register and sign up and log anything that you have read throughout the summer, between June and July 31st. So you can register and log everything all the way up until the day of the 31st and even on the 31st, you can sign up, register and log everything you’ve done and be able to participate that way,” MCLS Marketing and Community Relations Director Sean Fennell said.

MCLS uses an online app to track participants progress but paper tracking can be documented when you visit your nearest Muskingum County library. Fennell noted that they offer a variety of prizes tailored to indulge readers of all ages. 

“We do have different prizes throughout the entire Summer Reading program to help incentivize, that are appropriate for the age group. Now for our grand prizes, where you get to put in your raffle tickets, a lot of times what we will see is that there’s nothing quite that fits exactly what you’re looking for and maybe you have a little one in your life, you can put in some of your raffle tickets for the things they’re interested in as well. So just because you’re an adult reader doesn’t mean you can’t register to get that dragon squish-mallow, if that’s the one your child’s interested in,” Fennell said.

According to participation data from the Beanstack app, this year’s Summer Reading Challenge shows more than 1,500 active participants having logged nearly 21,000 books read.