Literally Yours
By Stephanie McComb and Sarah Gregory
For the past few years the library has tried its best to keep hidden its darkest secret. You may be asking what this dark secret is. It’s not a hidden dungeon or a secret laboratory devoted to Deborah’s most fiendish shoe creations. The well hidden secret is this: the library is just a front for a highly effective spy agency known as R.E.A.D.
This may comes as a shock, but behind the smiling faces of our staff are highly trained agents devoted to protecting all things literary from the forces of evil.
Unfortunately, the library has been forced to reveal its secret identity. For the past year, Director Deborah Cryderman has suspected that the library has been infiltrated by a mole. The mole has been stealing books, sabotaging agent missions, and worse of all have been selling R.E.A.D secrets to our rival agency, the Camrose Public Library.
Though director Cryderman has assigned one agent (and has been given the alias, Agent 009) to find the mole, she does not believe the mole can be discovered by one person. After much deliberation, it has been decided to ask our youngest readers for help in discovering the mole. It is for their help that our secret has been revealed.
This summer participants of the elementary summer reading program Agent 009 will help catch the mole. Every week participants (a.k.a Junior Agents) will analyze clues left by the mole. Each Junior Agent will be given a spy kit (which will include staff bios, extra spy information and tools) to help find the mole.
This is just one of the many activities Junior Agents will undertake. Children will become well versed in all the tricks of espionage and detective work. Along with spy and detective training, Junior Spies will learn about art fraud, history mysteries, and spies from around the world. Finally, Junior Agents will engage in the most useful of spy training, reading!
This coming Tuesday is the first day of training for “Agent 009”. Along with a briefing about the mole and receiving their spy kits, Junior Agents will hear stories, make crafts and improve their physical and mental prowess by playing a few games of tag, mafia and hot stuffed moose.
Agent 009 is open to all children (we mean agents) entering grades one to five. Agent training will run every Tuesday and Thursday. Younger agents (entering grades one to three) will come in the morning from 10 AM to noon. Agents entering grades four and five will come in the afternoon from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
A whole summer of Agent 009 is just $30. For those who can’t come to every program there is a drop-in rate of $3.
As a note, Agent 009 will wrap up Thursday, Aug. 20.
This Monday will be the launch of another summer reading program, Small Fries, is a fantastic new program for children ages 3 to 5 (if they are entering kindergarten this year).
Small Fries is an hour-long story time that aims to promote literacy, learning and fun for young readers. Each program children will learn about a different aspect of our world through stories, crafts, games and songs.
Small Fries begins at 1 p.m. and ends at 2 p.m. The program will run every Monday till August 17. This program is free.
To finish a very long article, we would like to remind all teens about the Summer Spy Society. Teens are welcome to stop by the library every Monday and Wednesday night from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. for crafts, food, board games, video games and sports. This program is free and open to all teens entering grades six to nine.
If you have any questions please feel free to call us at 403.742.2292 or email at stephanie@libs.prl.ab.ca or sarah@libs.prl.ab.ca.