Library starts new year of ‘Storytimes’

Thursday morning is storytime at the Port Orchard Library.

After a rousing rendition of “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on a Bed” — complete with jumping — a dozen toddlers settle in on the laps of the adults around them to hear a story: “Hippos Go Berserk,” read by librarian Kathleen Wilson.

Last week marked the start of a new season of reading at the library that will last until spring.

Each week, dozens of Port Orchard’s youngest residents — infants, toddlers, preschoolers and families with small children — will come to the library to hear a story.

According to branch manager Linda Thompson, weekly programs run for two sessions.

The fall session runs from mid-September through the end of November. The winter/spring session runs from mid-January through the end of May.

When Storytime is in session, the library holds four programs per week: Little Skippers Infant Program on Monday afternoons; Toddler and Preschool Storytimes on Thursday mornings; and, Family Pajama Storytime on Monday evenings.

Thompson estimates the Storytimes serve 50 South Kitsap families every week.

“We think reading is the most important thing that a parent and a child can do,” Thompson said last month. “Integrating the library into their lives early will make the whole family readers.”

Open seven days a week with almost 224,000 people coming through its doors yearly, the Port Orchard Library is taking special pains to make sure everyone gets on the reading bandwagon by adding hours starting in April, increasing signage and responding to the public in a strategic plan developed for the nine libraries and book mobile in the Kitsap Regional Library System.

The plan is scheduled to be released this month.

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