We Had Fun All Summer Long!

We had a great time this summer at the Des Moines Public Library! All Summer Long, the library's summer reading program, wrapped up last week. It included puppet shows, space science, storytimes, music, and so much more. Here are some big numbers from this year:

Our six branches hosted 550 programs for children and teens over the course of the course of 10 weeks. That's 55 programs a week - or 8 per day. Those programs were attended by a total of 16,750 people over the course of the summer - that's an average of 30 people at each program!

5,700 children registered for All Summer Long this year, and the library handed out more than 2,000 free books to kids as prizes. Counting just the reading logs that were turned in by the end of the summer, families took part in nearly 12,500 hours of reading activities by the end of the summer.

Finally, kids and families borrowed 100,750 books throughout the summer. That's 100,750 new stories that were brought into homes across Des Moines. 100,750 different times that a child's imagination was tickled, or that they were taken to a new world. It's the most exciting number of them all.

Thank you for coming to the library All Summer Long. Check out our video highlighting all the fun we had!