The library rewarded Maple Ridge children on Tuesday for keeping up their reading through the summer.

The children lined up patiently - about 200 in all - at Memorial Peace Park on Tuesday to shake hands with Maple Ridge Mayor Ernie Daykin and Councillor Corisa Bell and receive their medals at the Summer Reading Club Finale, presided by library manager Caro O'Kennedy.

The reading club encourages children to read 15 minutes a day during the summer, and is supported by the B.C. Library Association, the Fraser Valley Regional Library, the RBC Foundation, and the Ministry of Education.

The program has been running since 1990 and this year's theme was "Strange... but true."

Children are given a reading record when they join, and then they track their daily reading, earn stickers, solve puzzles, enter contests, and work towards earning the coveted Summer Reading Club medal, explained librarian Christine McFee.

"Often children participate year after year, and collect and keep the medals they earn each year," she added.

Summer Reading Club is aimed at children in elementary school. To support early literacy, Fraser Valley Regional Library also runs a Read-to-Me program for pre-school children, encouraging parents to spend time every day reading with their younger children.

Fraser Valley libraries also run teen and adult reading clubs to support literacy and a love of reading for entire families.

Maple Ridge Library works with School District 42 to encourage participation. Library staff visit several schools each spring with a travelling puppet show to encourage children to join and participate in the Summer Reading Club.

This year more than 200 preschool children joined the library's Read-To-Me program, and more than 900 school children joined the Summer Reading Club.

As soon as a children have completed their reading records, they can come up to the children's desk to be awarded their medal.

mrantanen@mrtimes.com