Summer is here and so is the summer programming for ReadOKC On the Go! Thanks to funding from Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health and a partnership with the Metro Library System, there are great opportunities for kids and families to enjoy reading throughout the summer months.

ReadOKC On the Go! is the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation’s traveling school bus retrofitted and filled with books. ReadOKC On the Go! has made 43 visits over the past year and has provided more than 14,000 books for OKCPS students. These are books from all genres and reading levels that students choose for their own home libraries from the extensive selection on the bus.

Summer programming launches June 1 from 1:00-5:00 pm at the Almonte Library at 2914 SW 59^th Street, where all children attending will receive a book, ReadOKC coloring page, book mark, sticker and other materials.

The second summer event celebrates Juneteenth and is a Summer Art Day Event on June 14^th from 1:00-3:00 pm at the Ralph Ellison Library at 2000 NE 23^rd Street. This special event will also host Alton Carter, well known author of The Boy Who Carried Bricks and The Boy Who Went to the Library. Children attending will receive a book. Carter will start the day visiting OKCPS summer school students at Taft Middle School and US Grant High School, where each student will receive a copy of his book, The Boy Who Carried Bricks. Carter is from Oklahoma and has a compelling story of resilience coming through the foster system and overcoming very difficult circumstances.

Next on the agenda is an exclusive OKCPS event for summer school students on June 21. This event will be at Scissortail Park and is a reward for students reaching certain reading benchmarks at the midway point in the ReadOKC Summer Reading Challenge.

July 8 is the Mid-Summer Prevent the Slide Event at Capitol Hill Library at 327 SW 27^th Street and plans are underway to also add a special guest author to this event.

The summer will finish out with some visits to Boys and Girls Clubs and the bus will also be rolling in the Pride Parade on June 25.

This diverse and community driven schedule is aligned with ReadOKC’s mission of instilling the love of reading in our students and community. We hope to engage families and pre-school children with the joy of reading as the bus travels throughout our city. Reading at least 20 minutes per day is the goal of the ReadOKC Summer Reading Challenge and is simple for kids and families to do together. The ReadOKC On the Go! summer programming is designed to be fun and inclusive. Here’s to partnerships and a summer of reading. Hope you’ll join us!