Albert Lea Public Library

By Tyler Julson

tyler.julson@albertleatribune.com

Running June 7 through July 22, the Albert Lea Public Library will host the 2021 summer reading program with this year’s theme being “Tails and Tales.”

The program is divided into three categories, kids picture book, kids chapter book and teen. The three categories offer prizes as incentives for children to keep reading. Participants in the picture book category earn a prize for every five books read, while the kids chapter book and teen participants win a prize for every two books read. All categories have a maximum of three prizes per person.

Participants can record the books they’ve read on their online library profile.

To register for the summer reading program, go to the Albert Lea Public Library website and follow the links.

The library will also offer the Read Across the United States Challenge, which offers readers the unique challenge of reading books by different authors from different states. The program runs June 7 through Aug. 22 and offers prizes to readers who log books by authors from 10, 25 and 50 different states.

On top of the summer reading programs, the library is also offering a number of different events throughout the summer.

“We’re doing a mix of in-person outdoor programs and virtual programs,” said assistant director Annice Sevett. “The outdoor programs are going to be story time and early literacy programs because it’s important to have an in-person component with those.

“The bigger events where we used to do weekly programs and get up to 70 people, we’re doing those virtually because we don’t have the space to accommodate that many people.”

According to Sevett, one of the programs the staff at the library are most looking forward to is the pet parade. The pet parade will ask community members to send in photos of their pets, livestock or stuffed animals to be featured in a YouTube video published by the library.

Here’s a list of some of the offerings. Check on the library’s website for a full schedule of events and a detailed description of each event.

Ongoing throughout the summer:

Mondays and Tuesdays through July 22: Storytime at the Fountain Lake Gazebo, 10:30 a.m. Thursdays through July 22: Music and Movement at Fountain Lake Gazebo, 10:30 a.m. all week: Weekly virtual storytime on the library’s YouTube page

June 7-13: Zooman virtual show. Available on the library’s YouTube page.

June 17-19: Friends of the Library Book Sale at City Center Garage

June 21-27: Greg the Great Virtual Magic Show. Available on the library’s YouTube page.

While some of the Albert Lea library’s summer events will take place in-person this summer, others will be held

virtually. The Rad Zoo event will take place virtually on the library’s YouTube page this year. tribune file photo