Summer fun heats up at Andrew Carnegie Free Library

It’s official! Summer is here and summer reading has kicked off at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall.

This year’s summer reading theme is “Oceans of Possibilities.” Nate Wyrick, our assistant library director, gave us the perfect tie-in for this theme.

He was making room his home for a project and donated his jellyfish tank to the children’s department. The twirling, swirling, lifelike jellyfish have captured the attention of young and old patrons alike.

Through August, the library is hosting a scavenger hunt for patrons to find pictures of sea creatures hidden throughout the library. June’s hunt features jellyfish. Stop at the circulation desk and ask for the scavenger hunt boards and see if you can find all nine hidden jellyfish Don’t forget to pick up your prize at the circulation desk.

Earlier in the spring, a team of students from Carlynton High School designed and painted a new sidewalk obstacle course on the music hall side of the building. It has been a lot of fun watching the children jump, bounce, dance and spin as they race to the end of the course.

One of the challenges is to “walk the plank” over shark-infested waters. One of our littler patrons likes the give the sharks a loving pat on the fin before she moves on to the next challenge. It’s very sweet.

Speaking of sweet, another summer reading program is Reading with Ginny at 1 p.m. Wednesdays.

Ginny is a Bernedoodle. That’s a mix of Bernese Mountain Dog and Poodle. This makes her hypo-allergenic. Her fur won’t make you sneeze. It also makes her very smart, with an extremely gentle personality.

Ginny, whose real name is Virginia Woof (named for a very famous author) enjoys learning and being with people. She loves when the children read to her! It’s a great way for children to practice their reading in the summer. Reading out loud to a dog has been shown to improve fluency and confidence.

A special thank you to Tonilyn Jackson for sharing Ginny with us.

We are continuing to offer our baby and toddler storytime Tuesday mornings at 10:30 and our Preschool storytime on Thursday mornings at 11:30 in the children’s department. You also are invited to watch our Bilingual English and Arabic Storytime with Rema Abdin of the Attawheed Islamic Center on the fourth Friday of every month at 4:30 p.m.

Our Monday evening family storytime at 6 is now being offered live and outside in Library Park at the mosaic benches. In case of inclement weather or if it’s just too hot, we’ll bring storytime into the air-conditioned Library.

Keep an eye on our calendar, which can be found on our website, CarnegieCarnegie.org. We will be adding new storytime hours, including one on Saturday mornings.

Jena Schieb from the Artsmiths of Pittsburgh is offering monthly art classes. Two in particular this summer are for children.

On July 16, she is presenting “Water Color Experiments” for elementary-aged kids. They will experiment with various household products to learn about the diverse properties of watercolors.

On Aug. 20, Jena will return with “Wonderful Water Art” for preschoolers with an adult. She promises that vibrant artwork will be created.

We will also be offering Art in Library Park experiences. On July 2, elementary-age children are invited to join me in the park as we create paintings of fireworks using a very unlikely paintbrush.

Summer Lego Free Play is returning on Mondays at 2 p.m. The Legos will be out awaiting children’s creativity.

Further information about these programs and more is on our website. To sign up for summer reading, visit carnegielibrary.beanstack.com to register. You also can pick up your paper registration from at the circulation desk.

We are offering a total of 10 different brag tags to our summer reading participants. Sign up, visit us and get started.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to call me at (412) 276-3456 x11 or email me at doughertyj@carnegiecarnegie.org.

Happy reading!