We invited you back in June to join us in a little summer reading, to dabble along the way in a little art, to open the door to a little enlightenment, maybe a little regeneration – and 2½ months of simple, page-turning fun.

Boy, did you!

By the time the Library’s 2022 Summer Reading Program, themed Art Starts at Your Library, wrapped up Monday, August 15, it had shattered records across the board. Nearly 12,000 of you participated (11,639 to be exact, a staggering 45% more than the previous high of 8,045 in 2019). You read more than 23,700 books (some 1,700 more than the old record of 21,939, again set three years ago).

You also dove into comics-drawing classes and a stained glass-effect community art project. Teens dug drama training and turned the Library’s Digital Media Lab into a record label, cutting three songs and corresponding music videos. Tweens created jigsaw puzzles and converted old CDs into art. Younger kids enjoyed bubble painting, puppet making, and felt-board storytelling.

Kaite Stover, the Library’s director of readers’ services, reasons that patrons were anxious to reengage in person and in full after hunkering down for two years amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Summer Reading was offered only virtually in 2020 and strictly outdoors a year ago.

“I’m gobsmacked,” Stover says of the 2022 numbers.

Kids were the core audience, as always. But Stover points to the 4,111 adults who registered – also an all-time high.

“Grown-ups going with the kids to sign up are being encouraged by (Library) staff that, ‘Hey, reading is fun for you, too. And you can model good reading behavior,’ ” she says. “We’re reaching more people who always thought it was a youth-related program and are now learning it’s a program for everybody, for all ages and all levels of readers.”

The Library’s Pop in at the Park program, launched during early months of the pandemic in 2020, helped drive the Summer Reading success. Thirty-one programs at four sites across the city – Seven Oaks, Gillham and Concourse parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Square Park – drew 1,619 people, young and old.

More than four dozen other youth outreach activities, entailing visits to such sites as Hope House, Rose Brooks, and Camp Lake of the Woods and in conjunction with the Juneteenth Heritage Festival and other events, attracted 3,724 more.

The Bookmobile was able to make more stops, including visits at 16 community events.

Bottom line: Summer Reading 2022 was a triumph.

Which Stover says means “we’re really setting ourselves up for Summer Reading 2023. How on earth are we going to beat this year’s numbers?

“We may have to bring LaVar Burton in to do his own Reading Rainbow for us.”

Summer Reading’s five most popular youth books:

1. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
3. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
4. Can I Play Too? (An Elephant & Piggy book) by Mo Willems
5. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd

The five most read adult titles:

1. Book Lovers by Emily Henry
2. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
3. Verity by Colleen Hoover
4. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
5. The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley