This summer almost 20,000 kids are expected to participate in a variety of reading contests, arts programs, music concerts and other cool activities available for free at all 17 Metropolitan Library locations around Oklahoma County.

The theme of this year’s children’s program is “Be Creative,” and a fantastic variety of music, art, dance, and theater events will be featured at libraries around the county.  For teens, the ”Express Yourself” events include hip hop dance, henna art, and graffitti programs.  Local performers like the Lucky Penny Players and Rhythmically Speaking will also perform at special library programs all through the summer.

This year’s ”Summer at the Library” features more cool music events than ever before, including the first ever Metro Music Fest with acclaimed children’s rock bands from around the country.  On June 9 at the Midwest City Library, the third annual all-ages Wizard Rock Concert presents a lineup of four Harry Potter-inspired bands, including the Remus Lupins and the Whomping Willows, scheduled to rock people’s faces off starting at 6:00 p.m.

The summer library programs are a great way to keep kids reading after the school year is over, and lots of cool prizes are on offer as an extra incentive.  When kids read eight books, 800 pages, or spend eight hours reading, additional prizes are given along with entry into grand prize drawings at the end of the summer and tickets to the Oklahoma City Red Hawks’ “Library Night at the Ballpark” on August 3.

Kids can register at any Metropolitan Library location through June and July, and they’ll receive a cool packet of stuff as soon as they sign up.

Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s 2005 book is the story of Ray and Silo, two male “chinstrap penguins” living in New York’s Central Park Zoo whose longtime companionship was noted by zookeepers.  When the two penguins were observed attempting to hatch a rock that resembled an egg, zookeepers successfully introduced an actual egg from another penguin couple who were unable to hatch theirs.  When the chick, Tango, was born after their several weeks of care, Ray and Silo raised her for two-and-a-half  months until she could survive on her own.

The book’s interesting story and pictures are enjoyable enough on their own terms, but the especially great part (for previously uninformed readers like myself) comes in an afterword where the authors confirm that this is indeed a true story.  As the New York Times reported, this “love that dare not squeak its name” between the two inseparable penguins is a fairly common phenomenon according to zookeepers and biologists.

 According to concerned folks in Illinois, Virginia, and North Carolina, among other places, the book’s controversial celebration of diverse families means access to it in libraries should be restricted.  Some libraries have moved it to the non-fiction section in an attempt to avoid controversy, and other school districs have removed it from the shelves altogether. 

Co-author Parnell reports that at a book signing at BookExpo America a few years ago, many librarians waiting in line told him, “I love your book, but I could never buy it for our library.”

A memo from school administrators in North Carolina explained their reasons for banning it from the district:

“First, it is a picture book that focuses on homosexuality. Second, we did not feel that such information was vital to primary students. Next, we did not believe the book would stimulate growth in ethical standards, and the book is too controversial.”

The ALA’s “Most Frequently Challenged Books” list features other titles for which objections were raised due to “homosexual themes,” while separate categories of offense include “occult/satanism” (the Scary Stories series), “offensive language/sexually explicit” (The Kite Runner), and “political/religious viewpoint” (Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, showing up at #2 on last year’s list).

The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom reported 513 book challenges across the country in 2008.  With the threat of rampaging gay penguins on the rise thanks to global warming, 2009 could well be another challenging year for those infamously hedonistic radicals, Ray and Silo.

I recently came across a fascinating title in the children’s section that genuinely changed the way I look at the entire world.  If the World Were a Village, by David J. Smith and Shelagh Armstrong, presents a vast array of demographic statistics in beautifully simplified form, proceeding from the premise of considering the world’s population as if it were a village of 100 people.

Scaling down the almost unimaginable (even for adults) numbers of billions of the Earth’s people to a manageable size, the book presents a imaginary village in which each of its 100 people would represent about 62 million people from the real world.  Beautiful illustrations accompany each page of descriptions of the village’s nationalities, languages, religions, resources, and other interesting statistics.

This innovative way of looking at the world reveals some striking facts along the way.  Of the global village’s 100 people, 61 are from Asia, and only 5 are from the United States or Canada.  Only 24 of the 100 villagers always have enough to eat, while 26 are severely undernourished.  In 1900, only 32 people lived in the village, but by 2050 there could be nearly 200 people.

A short epilogue aimed at parents and other adult readers suggests ways of using the book to illustrate connections among the world’s cultures.  The book’s website features follow-up statistics and exercises, and a related DVD is also available.

If the World Were a Village is a great tool for expanding young readers’ minds about the larger world, and it’s sure to encourage further investigations into geography, social studies, and civics.  It’s certainly eye-opening for readers of any age to consider a village in which 17 out of the 100 of us cannot read at all.