10-year-old Penelope Droege from Fort Worth, Texas is running a neighborhood library out of her garage.
“This is our summer garage library and we’re just trying to get people to read over the summer. So we have a bunch of our books from our house and our dad’s classroom,” Penelope said.
The neat thing is that her dad is a fourth grade teacher at Kay Granger Elementary School in the Northwest ISD. In fact, some of the books at the garage library are from his classroom. They are books Penelope said would have just sat in the school all summer long with no one to read them. The rest of the books were donated or taken straight from the libraries of the four Droege children.
If you are lucky enough to live near the garage library, you can visit it every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday of the summer, for select hours each day, the garage door is open.
According to the interview, the library is complete with library cards and the old school check-out system. Visitors write their name in the old school borrowing card inside the book and then they have a generous two weeks to return.
“I think the biggest part for me is that you’re creating life-long learners. That’s even when you get out of school that you should be reading and curious,” said Penelope’s dad Brian Droege. “But also, what other programs there are. The libraries have summer reading programs and a lot of the book stores have summer reading programs. So we want to get them those materials so that they can log their reading.”
Personally, I think this is a great idea and one of those times where I wonder, “why didn’t I think of that?”
You can follow the Summer Garage Library on Facebook (run by Penelope’s parents) for updates on how it’s going.
If you want to encourage your kids to read throughout the summer, this might be a great idea. You can also participate in the Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program where they can earn free books!
This is a great initiative! I think that we have to encourage our kids to read more because reading can significantly develop imagination, mind at all, bring new outstanding life experience and motivate kids for creativity. Also, I think that to love reading you should find your book, you know. So, listen to your neighboorhood kids, recall your first favorite book and suggest it to your children. By the way, if you want your child to read more, discuss with him or her books, try to write something on your own.