Letters to the Editor

NewCanaanite.com recently received the following letter(s) to the editor. Please send letters to editor@newcanaanite.com for publication here.

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Editor,

The new school year has started, and we in the Family Services Department of New Canaan Library would like to take a moment to thank the community for its tremendous support and participation in our summer programs!

After adapting and adjusting our 2020 and 2021 Summer Reading programs due to the pandemic, the Family Services department was ready to dive into our 2022 Summer Reading challenge. New Canaan’s kids and teens were ready too!

On average, we had over 300 visitors a day in the Children’s Room. Our Summer Reading program this year saw a 245 percent increase in participation, and an incredibly rewarding level of engagement and excitement. One thousand and fifty children and teens leapt into our Summer Reading challenge this summer. Children read more than 730,468 minutes and teens read more than 354,372 pages. We were so impressed by their thoughtful book reviews, their creative takes on our Summer Reading activities, and their persistence in stretching their personal reading goals.

A big thank you goes to the elementary schools for supporting our summer program; inviting our librarians to speak to the students in June really generated excitement about participating. We also thank Club Sandwich, The Toy Chest, Stew Leonard’s, and Get Air for providing exciting Summer Reading incentives. We are grateful to the Turner Construction team for hiding our Library Shark mascot in the construction site for kids to find throughout the summer. Many thanks to our wonderful teen volunteers who helped make badges and award prizes for our readers, assisted with setup and staffing at various programs, and kept us laughing all summer long.

Most of all, thank you to all the families who shared their summer learning with us. We so enjoyed being part of your children’s journeys to push their reading limits, and to try new things. Make sure to check out the online gallery of creature art that was submitted by the kids to earn their Creature from the Book Lagoon badge! 

This was our most successful summer program in documented history, and we thank all for making it so. We have already started to plan for next year!

Thank you, 

Marie Aspinwall 

Manager of Family Services, New Canaan Library