JACKSON, Wyo. — Bravo, summer readers!
The Teton County Library ran its annual summer reading program, challenging the community to read a collective 2 million minutes between June 1 and Aug. 9. A total of 1,427 people participated in the challenge and read a combined 2,292,706 minutes, Adult Programs Coordinator Leah Shlachter told Buckrail. On average, that comes out to roughly 26 hours of reading time per participant.
Last year, 1,469 readers collectively read 2,164,400 minutes; that means this year’s slightly smaller cohort was even more productive. Participants in the challenge included 490 adults, 76 high schoolers, 192 middle schoolers, 548 elementary schoolers and 121 preschoolers.
Popular titles this summer included the perennial favorite Harry Potter series, Theo of Golden by Allen Levi, The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett, Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, and The Overstory by Richard Powers.
Feedback collected by the library included these highlights, shared by Shlachter:
- “It makes me feel like a little kid again 🙂 and encourages me to grab my book vs. my phone.”
- “It’s cool to compare my reading minutes to my husband and children.”
- “It was just a nice tradition to enter our kids minutes over breakfast as we entered ours.”
- “I learned that I respond to incentives!”
Incentives included weekly raffle drawings for gift cards to local businesses. Until next year, summer readers!
