Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2023 Summer Reading Challenge! Readers logged over 209,000 days of reading this year and over 4,900 people completed the Challenge. We will post the first names and last initials of drawing prize winners by Tuesday, August 18. Anyone whose name was drawn will be contacted directly via the contact information provided during sign up. We hope to see everyone back for next year’s Summer Reading Challenge! In the meantime, keep an eye out for other reading challenges and check out our monthly event calendars for all the fun stuff happening at your library.
To review a list of our youth, teen, adult, and treasure chest drawing prize winners, please click here. Anyone whose name was drawn will be contacted directly via the contact information provided during sign up.
On Thursday, May 18, Melanie Hornbeck, Laramie County Library System’s Outreach Librarian, received the Carol Mead Leaders in Literacy Award. Dr. Kimberly Gustafson, Director of the University of Wyoming’s Literacy Research Center and Clinic, presented the award to Melanie in front of an adoring group of fans, the kindergarten classes at Afflerbach Elementary School.
Laramie County Library System’s Board of Directors has announced that after over 42 years of remarkable service to the organization, County Librarian and Executive Director Carey Hartmann will retire from Laramie County Library System, effective July 1, 2023. Having served as the library’s Executive Director for nearly eight years, Carey’s leadership, vision, and experience helped shape the organization into the outstanding community resource that it is today.
During the month of February, Laramie County Library’s Cheyenne Book Discussion Group read The Good Lord Bird by James McBride. A work of historical fiction featuring a Black main character and written by a Black author, the novel was chosen to coincide with Black History Month. The book follows the adventures of young Henry Shackleford, a Kansas slave boy who finds himself tangled up with abolitionist John Brown’s ragtag army during the turbulent period in American history known as Bleeding Kansas. Today, the events of Bleeding Kansas along with John Brown’s failed Harpers Ferry armory raid, and his subsequent execution, are recognized as precursors to the American Civil War.
For the month of January, Laramie County Library’s Book Discussion Group read Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel Gone Girl, a keen psychological thriller tightly woven through a series of twists ending in a subtle cliffhanger. The plot revolves around the novel’s two main characters, Nick and Amy Dunne, a youngish married couple who have recently relocated to Nick’s hometown of Carthage, Missouri. The story is set during the Great Recession in which both Nick and Amy have lost their jobs as writers in New York City. The novel opens on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary and the mysterious disappearance of Amy Elliot Dunne, who also happens to be the living archetype for her psychologist parents’ popular Amazing Amy children’s books.