Library holds ‘Back to School Bash’

The Bonne Terre Memorial Library held a “Back to School Bash” last week hosted by the “Friends of the Library” and Bonne Terre Memorial Library.

Special Services Coordinator Amanda Carron said they had a much larger turnout than they expected.

“We expected around 20 to 30 people at the most and we didn’t expect this many,” said Carron. “It went really well and we probably had around 80 people there. There were around 53 children sitting there watching Philly Jilly the clown.”

Carron added that they had bought 100 hot dogs and they only had three left after the event ended.

“At first we were thinking we were going to have all kinds of hotdogs left when it was over,” said Carron. “I think we did really well and the ‘Friends of the Library’ made it all happen by funding the event.”

In addition to the Back to School Bash the library was able to make a new addition to the book shelves. Carron said they were awarded the Missouri State Library Racing to Read Grant.

“That is a grant for early literacy,” said Carron. “We have a ton of new preschool/kindergarten age books. There are a lot of board books and early literacy that we would really like to see going off of the shelves. They are on display here at the library and they are in the easy section and the board book section. It is packed so there is a lot of new stuff there.”

They will be starting their reading program in the first week of September. Tentatively, pre-school story time will be held on Monday’s at 10:30 a.m. and after school story time will be on Thursday’s at 4 p.m.

For more information about the reading program the Bonne Terre Memorial Library staff can be reached at 573-358-2260.

Philly Jilly the clown makes balloon animals for the kids and provides entertainment that received a lot of giggles.

Renee Bronaugh is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-518-3617 or rbronaugh@dailyjournalonline.com