35310 minutes. That's 588.5 hours, 24.52 days, 3.5 weeks. It's also the total amount of time that local youth spent reading this summer for the library's summer reading initiative.

No matter how you look at it, that's a lot of reading. 3.5 weeks of reading 24 hours per day spread across the nearly 200 young readers who signed up to count their minutes spent reading in the last six weeks.

This summer, local youth enjoyed events related to the nation-wide reading theme: "Dragons, Dreams and Daring Deeds" including a magician, a medieval musician and a mad-scientist's advice on how to rid your castle of uninvited dragons. And 83 of those readers completed their age-related reading goal for the summer. 18 of those 83 readers completed their entire summer reading goal more than once (the record reader for this summer actually completed the goal 9 times!).

To show our appreciation and how proud we are of these fantastic readers those 83 who reached their reading goal will be recognized with blue ribbons at the County Fair. Ribbons will be available for pick up at the library's booth in the Fair building, as well as a display of the all the names of these outstanding readers.

Congratulations to all the children who spent time reading this summer!

Bead necklaces will also be available at the library booth at the fair for all those, young and old, who will share a book that made a difference: name a book that made a difference in your life, a book that made a difference for a friend or a book that made a difference in the world.