Welcome to Your Library

MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:

It is once again time for our annual All Pikes Peak Reads program. This year, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of NASA and the 40th anniversary of landing a man on the moon, we collaborate with the Challenger Learning Center to provide book selections featuring the theme of space and space exploration. They are accompanied by a number of reading, viewing, listening, and participatory activities to enhance your reading experience.

In addition to revisiting the exciting early era of space exploration, Homer Hickam’s Rocket Boys offers the life lesson of persevering against odds and personal circumstances to achieve an individual dream.

Pikes Peak Library District tries to optimize the reader experience by bringing authors and their readers together. Homer Hickam will be here at the end of October.

Peter Block’s Community: The Structure of Belonging, while not about space, is about related themes seen in our book selections on space -- the future, change, and dreams. Block’s work provides thoughts and steps on building community, and it complements the work of Dream City and other community initiatives this year. He is scheduled to visit Colorado Springs later in the year.

A worthy additional reading effort we are promoting this month is a project of the Quality of Life Indicators’ Education Vision Council. This group has initiated an effort to increase access to books by preschoolers and to increase parents’ awareness of the importance of reading to a child’s future success and achievement in school, work, and life. In early October, watch for the kick-off of a book drive to collect new and gently used books for kids birth through age five. All of the branches of Pikes Peak Library District will have drop-off/collection boxes. These books will go to hospitals, day care centers, pediatricians’ offices, and will be placed in the hands of young children and their parents, along with information on early reading and learning. Areas and families with the most economic need will receive priority. PPLD is collaborating with individuals from Community Partnership for Child Development, the Children’s Literacy Center, United Way, the Alliance for Kids, Pikes Peak Workforce Center, schools, colleges, and residents to make this project a success.

Help Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region reach new heights in reading! We hope everyone in your family checks out at least one of our four APPR selections… and please consider donating a book for a child whose family may not otherwise be able to afford it.

Paula J. Miller

Executive Director, Pikes Peak Library District