PICKFORD COMMUNITY LIBRARY HONORED AS A TOP LIBRARY IN THE 2017 SCHOLASTIC SUMMER READING CHALLENGE The Pickford Community Library has reason to celebrate! It was designated as a "Top Library" in the United States in the 2017 <http://www.scholastic.com/summer> Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge. This is the first year Scholastic is recognizing the contributions of libraries and community partners along with schools in the challenge. The Pickford Community Library coordinated and administrated the challenge for Pickford Public Schools, area homeschoolers, and participants from other Eastern Upper Peninsula schools. These students read more than 235,764 minutes from May 8 to September 8 this summer. In addition, the local community provided outstanding support for the library's "piggyback rewards program" in which students earned prizes all summer long. The Pickford Community Library will be featured in 2018 Scholastic Book of World Records and will receive a commemorative plaque and a celebration kit to recognize student reading achievements. This summer, children in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., two U.S. territories and 14 countries read 138,399,392 million minutes in the 2017 Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge. The complete list of Top Libraries, Top Community Partners, and "Best in State" schools is available at <http://www.scholastic.com/summer> www.scholastic.com/summer. The Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge is designed to help kids turn the "summer slide"-the learning loss which can occur over the summer months-into a "summer leap" by discovering the power and joy of reading for fun. For more information, contact Ann Marie Smith, Pickford Community Library Manager, at 906-647-1288 or <mailto:amsmith@uproc.lib.mi.us> amsmith@uproc.lib.mi.us.