Coshocton library sets summer reading kickoff

The 2026 Summer Reading Program at the Coshocton County District Library is just around the corner. Our special countywide kickoff event will be from 6-7 p.m. Tuesday, May 26 at the Coshocton Community Room.

There will be door prizes for children, teens and adults. Throughout the summer children and teens can earn prize entries for this year’s end-of-summer drawing by reading in 15-minute increments. Adults can easily earn prize entries for checking out items in person or online.

Participants can sign up and participate on the Beanstack app at coshoctonlibrary.beanstack.org/reader365 or in person at any of our three locations: the Coshocton County District Main Library, West Lafayette Branch Library or Coshocton County District Library Bookmobile.

The 2026 Summer Reading Program theme is "Unearth a Story," so now let’s unearth and talk about the history of Summer Reading Programs, especially in Coshocton County.

The Summer Reading Programs began no later than 1895 in the United States. In fact, some of the very earliest formal Summer Reading Programs were in Ohio.

Linda Eastman of the Cleveland Public Library debuted a list of best books in the library suitable for children in June 1895, kicking off what would become the Cleveland Children’s Library League. By 1897 this program had grown to over 12,000 young members over Cleveland’s service area. Although the Cleveland Children’s Library League ran throughout the entire year, it was promoted as especially useful to keep children reading during the summer and began recording what would later become summer reading logs.

In Dayton, where the program was adopted in 1898, it ran only during the summer.

The first mention of a Summer Reading Program at what was then the Coshocton Public Library is on Jan. 10, 1930, when The Coshocton Tribune reviewed the previous year’s events at our library. This article reveals summer 1929 was the very first Summer Reading Program for our county, calling it a new feature of the year. Already it had a theme, 1929 being a travel club project for children during the summer months.

The Tribune said, “Each child marked a map to show where he had gone on his reading journeys.”

In all, 150 of Coshocton County’s children participated in that first year, and they checked out 878 books between them.

Summer reading participation fluctuated in those first few years, with 1932 reporting only 40 children participating while Coshocton children were writing book reviews for the Tribune from their summer reading choices by 1934.

By 1939 the library was offering programs specifically themed for the Summer Reading Program and rewarding participants with certificates of completion. Travel, geography, world cultures and clocks were all popular summer reading themes in those early years.

In 1940 the Summer Reading Program was organized by the children themselves, open to all from first grade through eighth grade in the city and county schools. Their chosen theme was animals, and they recruited Robert Butterfield from the Ohio Division of Conservation and Natural Resources for their first speaker.

At this time the Coshocton Public Library had no bookmobile to serve our wider county, so it served by the branch library (established in 1936) and a series of small collections called stations, hosted in various local stories in smaller communities.

Demand was so great for summer reading books in 1941 that these stations hosted special increased collections during that Summer Reading Program. The 1948 theme was “Fish,” and the Coshocton Public Library stocked “Book-Fun Pond” for the county’s “young anglers,” led by the highest-scoring (and youngest) reader, 7-year-old Pat Johnson.

The Coshocton Public Library’s Carnegie Building on Walnut Street was recorded as decorating a “colorful appearance” for a “Carnival of Reading” theme in 1949 when they also hosted a “new” summer story time for young children.

The first year for adult participation in the library’s Summer Reading Program was 1950, when the theme was again "Travel." In 1952 the library’s very first bookmobile opened. It was purchased secondhand from Lorain County’s public library, with then-Director Margaret Sahling saying it gives “county readers an opportunity for summer reading.”

This year your local Coshocton County District Library is delighted to once again offer an opportunity for summer reading. Let's "Unearth a Story” together.