Cayman Islands Public Library Summer Reading Challenge Receives Great Reviews

Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands – With 701 books read and 583 hours of reading time clocked, officials at the Cayman Islands Public Library have given the 2016 Summer Reading Challenge rave reviews. The selected genres for this year’s competition were fantasy and science fiction, and at the end of the six weeks, four readers’ names from the group of 24 were randomly drawn to each win a prize. Daniel Suicio (7), Saria James (6), Thomas Sevik Jr (12) and Harper Barrowman (10) each received a Kindle HD for their efforts in an awards presentation held at the George Town Public Library this past weekend.

“There are so many wonderful books within these genres, from HG Wells and Jules Verne to JK Rowling and CS Lewis, books written in times when technology and other worlds had not even been conceived,” said Paul Robinson, Deputy Director of the Cayman Islands Public Library Service. “We were very impressed with the enthusiasm of all our readers and their love for books, evidenced by the number of hours they spent reading over the summer. I hope that the students that participated were truly inspired to become our future scientists, conceptual thinkers or perhaps authors themselves.”

Robinson said this year’s challenge took a slightly different format as students not only had to meet the minimum required reading hours but also explain in a 50-word summary which book they enjoyed most and why. Kindle HD’s were also presented to Frank Williams (14) and Kyan Okoli (8) who were judged to have written the best two summaries in each of the age groups. Each child that participated also receive a certificate of completion and an educational prize.

Harper Barrowman read 83 books over the summer, and says her favourites were all of the books in the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mystery series.

“I got so into them that it was hard to put the books down,” said Barrowman who also participated in last year’s Summer Reading Challenge. “I wrote my summary about one of the Hardy Boys books; I couldn’t decide which one so I just picked a random one because they were all my favourite. I read a lot of books every summer anyway so it was easy to do the Challenge.”

Dr. Tasha Ebanks Garcia, Deputy Chief Officer for Employment, Training, Tertiary Education Strategy & Public Library Services in the Ministry of Education, was on hand to present the certificates and gifts to the students as their parents looked on.

“Our lives would be fundamentally different if we could not read,” said Dr. Ebanks-Garcia. “I encourage you as parents to make sure that your kids read, not just for reading’s sake, but also to understand what they have read, and be able to think critically and analyse as that is the difference between a literate society and an understanding one. Thank you for participating in this programme and supporting the Library Services.”

The 2016 Summer Reading Challenge participants were:
• Arianna Leann Ebanks
• Frank Williams
• Amber Ebanks
• Matthew Gayle
• Thian Bodden
• Hunter Babb
• April Ebanks
• Carson McField
• Seane R Curry
• Osin Curry
• Darius Whittaker
• Thea James
• Sarai James
• Harper Barrowman
• Deiondre Donovan Williams
• Ethan Knowles
• Kyan Okoli
• Thomas James Sevik Jr
• Sean-Douglas Valentine
• Tad McFarlane
• Belen Scott
• Daphne Scott
• David Scott
• Daniel Suicio

Photo Captions:
Photo 1: Summer Reading Challenge prize winner Harper Barrowman with her certificate of completion.
Photo 2: Director of the Cayman Islands Public Library Service Mrs. Ramona Melody and Deputy Chief Officer for Libraries Dr. Tasha Ebanks-Garcia awarding Kyan Okoli for writing the best book summary in his age group.