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TAILS & TALES 

C.H. BOOTH LIBRARY’S SUMMER READING PROGRAM

June 14--August 20


How it Works

  • Register for an account. You can make accounts for yourself and your family.

  • Log in to your account and record your reading. See your age group below for more information regarding logging and prizes.

  • Visit us at the library for reading recommendations, and see our Event Calendar for more summer fun for the whole family. 


Frequently Asked Questions

  • Who can participate?

The whole family! We have a program for children, young adults, and adults. 


  • Can I count books that I read on my computer or e-reader?

Of course!


  • Can I count audiobooks?

You bet! 


  • Can I join the program before or after its official start date?  

Yes! You can register now and start recording your reading on the official start date (June 14th). Log your reading until August 20 for children, young adults, and adults.


  • What should I read?

Stop by the library to ask us for recommendations, view our book lists online, or follow us on social media, where we will post book recommendations all summer long. 


Facebook / Instagram / YA Instagram / Children’s Instagram


KIDS 

Ages 4 to Grade 5

Stop by the children’s department to pick up your summer reading kit. Each kit which includes  tickets for our prize raffle to be held on August 21.  All tickets must be received by August 20 to be eligible.



YOUNG ADULTS

Grades 6 to 12


Log your time spent reading to win points. Each week, participants will have the opportunity to use their reading points for the chance to win gift cards for local businesses and other fun stuff!


The summer’s top readers will have a chance to win a Kindle Fire tablet.


ADULTS


For every book review you submit, you will be entered into the Friday morning gift card raffle as well as the end-of-the-summer raffle of your choice.

All Participants
Points Earned

Book Reviews
Search All Book Reviews
The Quiet Boy
by Ben Winters
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It’s unusual for me to quit after reading half a book, but I just couldn’t get into this one. I had high expectations because I really liked Underground Airlines by the same author.  The Quiet Boy is told in two timelines 10 years apart. This is a common enough plot structure, but here the jumping back and forth makes the story confusing and disjointed. Jay Shenk is a medical malpractice lawyer who thinks he's found the case of a lifetime. Jay's adopted son Ruben is Jay's precocious assistant as a young teen and is trying to figure out who he is as a young adult. I liked these two characters and the scenes involving the lawsuit are both funny and spot on realistic. But I kept waiting for something to happen. What is this book about? I couldn’t figure it out after 197 pages so I gave up.
Before I Met You
by Lisa Jewell
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book cover


I've read many Lisa Jewell books and consider myself a fan. She does a great job of creating a realistic and vivid picture of her characters and their lives, and I usually enjoy following along as she tells their stories and gradually puts pieces together to solve a mystery or a puzzle of some kind. This book felt like Lisa Jewell "light," and read more like a romance novel. The book alternates between the lives of two young women making their way in London 70 years apart - Betty in the 1990s and Betty's step-grandmother Arlette in the 1920s. Both of them are extraordinarily beautiful, and other characters comment on this so often that it starts to seem ridiculous. I liked the story of Betty more than that of Arlette, but overall the characters in both time periods were flat, their problems were predictable and the book dragged on way too long. I had to force myself to finish it.
The Bear
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book cover


Great end of the world story about survival.
The Thursday Murder Club
by Richard Osman
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I really did enjoy this book. It is set in a residential community for the elderly in England, and I hope we meet the characters in future books as they are great. There are four murders in the book but they are touched upon very lightly. The main story is how the elderly club of sleuths work both with and ahead of the police force to solve them. It is a clever story told with a lot of humor and plot twists. I recommend this book for a summer read.
Three Perfect Liars
by Heidi Perks
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book cover


This book was fairly repetitive. There are three storylines that it follows, so you can see everyone's perspective. It definitely kept me guessing until the end. The book did a good job with character development. I would recommend it if you are looking for a different type of thriller book.
The Personal Librarian
by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
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This was just kind of boring? It's the story of real-life Belle da Costa Greene, who was hired by J. P. Morgan to be his personal librarian. She is in charge of finding and purchasing all of the rare books he wants for his collection, and in exchange he pays her a salary that is sufficient enough to keep her family comfortable. There's a lot of room for things to be stressful here - first, Belle is a woman, and it's not common for a woman to be hired for this position during the time period. She also deals with the stress of being the main income provider for her family, as her father left when she was a child. And, of course, Belle has to content with the fact that while on any official document she has been checking the "white," box, with enough digging, anyone would be able to find out she was lying - Belle's father is black. This is very much historical fiction, and is not at all a biography about Belle - however, with that in mind, I expected more to happen? It seems like a book where the character is constantly stressed, but nothing ever really seems to happen. There's no real tension or drama here to make the book compelling.
The Weight Of Ink
by Rachel Kadish
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book cover


This was an interesting book especially as I had no idea that the Jewish Race had ever been banned from England! It is set in the 1660s and in current time with the people in current time (Helen and Aaron) discovering the story of Ester who scribed for a Rabbi blinded in the Spanish Inquisition. Ester is actually an intellectual who uses her position to air her views in a time when a woman was not permitted to do such a thing. During the story we learn a lot about her tragic life whilst at the same time we discover that Helen and Aaron have secrets of their own. It is an emotional book with some sad parts and triumphal parts. I was hooked from beginning to end.
The Stepsisters
by Susan Mallery
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book cover


I liked the book, it was a quick read. But when I finished I felt like I had read it before. It has strong female characters, who learn about themselves and each other. They were not friends as children, who was to blame for that. Can they put the past behind them and come to be friends?
Ink And Bone
by Rachel Caine
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book cover


A bit darker than I was in the mood for, but I appreciated some of the twists. The love interest piece seemed a bit contrived, but it has served a useful plot motivator. Overall, it makes for a good, solid YA book with a believably flawed male character. The most valuable part of the book was experiencing Jess grappling with his own internal conflicts.
The Push
by Ashley Audrain
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book cover


The Push is a quick and intense read. I gave it 5 stars because it's a unique and fantastically written novel. It's dark, and also very sad and depressing. But Ashley Audrain makes narrator Blythe so real that I felt completely immersed in her struggles with motherhood and her relationships. I found the flashback sections a little confusing at first, but as the book went on it became clear that there was a purpose for including the unusual and disturbing stories of Blythe's mother and grandmother.
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