Middle School students meet reading challenge

(March 16, 2010)-The Voorheesville Middle/High School Library challenged middle school students to read 400 books in four weeks. “The Warm Winter Reads” Challenge began Monday, February 1 and was to end Friday, February 26th. Mother Nature on the other hand thought otherwise. Because of snow days officially the challenge ended Tuesday, March 2. With a charge to the finish, students reached the 400 "book mark" on March 1. The challenge was completed with 128 registered readers reading more than 100,000 pages of prose in 28 days.

A celebration was held on March 4 after school in the library. The culmination of the challenge coincided with The National Education Association’s 16th annual Read Across America event. The celebration also fell within the week of the birthday of childrens’ book author Theodor Geisel (3/2/1904-9/24/1991), better known as Dr. Seuss.

The purpose for the “Warm Winter Reads” Challenge, said Librarian Ms. Christina Menetti, “was to promote independent reading, facilitate use of the library collection for leisure reading and to generate enthusiasm for reading.” To encourage readers to complete the challenge, small items were awarded to students for each book completed and weekly drawings gave students the opportunity to choose new books at the annual book fair. The book fair was scheduled the last week in February.

Congratulations to all the students who participated in the "Warm Winter Reads" challenge!