We've been having some different discussions about the summer reading club prizes we give out. Children who finish their summer reading goal of 50 books or 600 minutes of reading get a packet of coupons (pizza, ice cream, passes to the zoo, etc.), a little prize (a rubber ducky or eraser), and an entry to win one of the bigger, "grand" prizes.
One thing I always notice with the little prizes is the segregation between what are "girl" and what are "boy" prizes, according to that patron. I've seen little boys pick out a princess ducky only to have their moms pull it out of their hands and pick something else that's "for boys." I had one girl and her mom complain that there weren't enough "girl prizes" - because according to them, dinosaurs and trucks are only for boys. I wish we wouldn't draw such hard-and-fast lines because I think sometimes it prevents kids from pursuing what they actually like, instead of what society says they're supposed to like.
We've also been talking about how many of our coupons are for chains owned by big corporations. Do we really want the library to promote specific corporations? Or promote any companies marketing to kids?
To go even further, why do we need prizes at all? The point of summer reading club is to keep kids reading during the summer. The point is not the prizes, and I wouldn't want kids to think it is. The prizes may be an effective bribe in some cases, but I also wonder if the kids who do the reading club only for the prizes actually get anything out of it. Maybe they just skim through a bunch of books they don't like until they reach the minimum and then stop reading by July 1st. Maybe the prizes aren't necessary at all.
In any case, there are definitely a lot of things to think about when it comes to summer reading club prizes.
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