Students are invited to participate in The Westport Garden Club's 2025 Youth Poetry Contest, presented in partnership with the Westport Arts Advisory Committee, Westport Poet Laureate Donna Disch, and The Westport Library.
The contest is affiliated with the National Garden Club’s Youth Poetry Contest and enables youth to embrace their creativity through the art of writing.
The theme for the 2025 competition is: “My Garden Has Vegetables to Spare That I Can Share – Helping Fight Hunger by Sharing Vegetables from Our Garden."
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Who Can Enter:
-Students in kindergarten through ninth grade.
- Including public and private schools, home-schooled students, special education, English as a Second Language, and general education students.
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Guidelines for Entries:
- All entries must be typed and titled.
- Include the participant's name, address, age, grade, and school on the back of the entry and the preferred email address for correspondence.
- All entries become the property of National Garden Clubs, Inc.
- Poems do not have to rhyme.
- Poems may be traditional verse, acrostics, blank verse, cinquains, diamond poems, limericks, or Haiku.
- The theme should not be used as the title of any poetry. (When judging, the title is worth 10 points.)
- Poems should be submitted by email to: westportctgardenclub@gmail.com by January 10, 2025.
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Scale of Points
Title: 10%
Content: 40%
Creativity: 30%
Style: 20%
Total: 100%
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Entries are due by January 10, 2025. The poems selected by a jury committee will then be submitted to the regional organization, New England Garden Clubs, for another round of judging. The region's final selections will then be submitted for National Garden Club Awards, where winning entries will be compiled into a booklet and made available to the winners.
Locally, poets will be invited to read from their work at a library event, open to the public to celebrate poetry in April 2025.
To view the 2024 winning entries, click here.
The Westport Children’s Library is the introduction to reading for countless Westporters. Now, there are more options than ever get your child engaged — however and whatever they’d like to read.
The Children’s Library has purchased 379 new titles — books and audiobooks — to bolster their digital collection, adding offerings from some of the most famous and beloved children’s authors of today and all time.
“We consistently strive to meet kids where they are, to find ways to engage them in reading, and to foster their love of books,” said Westport Library Director of Youth Services Mary Parmelee. “This expansion helps advance our depth and breadth of titles for the digital age, while providing the same comfort that kids have found in great books for centuries.”
Among the authors added to the digital collection are Kwame Alexander, Dhonielle Clayton, Beverly Cleary, Suzanne Collins, Kate DiCamillo, Sarah J. Maas, Rick Riordan, Lemony Snicket, Jasmine Warga, and Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Other titles include works by Hanna Alkaf, John David Anderson, Victoria Aveyard, L. Frank Baum, Kiera Cass, Eoin Colfer, Leslie Connor, Lindsay Currie, Lamar Giles, Karina Yan Glaser, Tommy Greenwald, Margaret Peterson Haddix, Jenny Han, Varian Johnson, L.M. Montgomery, Garth Nix, Sara Pennypacker, Lisa Moore Ramee, Gary Schmidt, Brian Selznick, Christina Soontornvat, Angie Thomas, and Anne Ursu.
“We were very deliberate in the titles we chose,” Parmelee said, “because we know there are so many different types of readers with different interests. We hope this gives them more options to find a book they love, and we can’t wait to see them develop a love for books and learning. And then to come tell us about them! There’s nothing we love more.”
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Photo: Top Row (L to R): Kwame Alexander, Brian Selznick, Sarah J. Maas, Jasmine Warga, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Kate DiCamillo, and Dhonielle Clayton; Bottom Row (L to R): Rick Riordan, Karina Yan Glaser, Varian Johnson, Lemony Snicket, L.M. Montgomery, Beverly Cleary, and Suzanne Collins
The start of June means summer is on the horizon, and The Westport Library has a pair of challenges to make sure any and every reader — of any and every age — has the opportunity to bury their nose in a book during the year’s warmest months.
So, whether you’re looking for something to read on vacation, at the beach, or on your couch, or whether you want to make sure your kids or grandkids stay sharp and build their literacy skills during the break, we have a challenge and a club for you.
Adult Summer Reading Challenge
The 8th Annual Adult Summer Reading Challenge runs June 1 through August 31.
The rules are the same as past challenges, this year with a fresh round of 25 categories (the categories will be unveiled June 1). You can do all of them or only one, or anything in between, just as long as you have fun reading!
The rules are simple and there are only two:
Once you have read a book that fulfills a category, you can submit it via the form on our website (also available starting June 1) and track your progress on our leaderboard.
The leaderboard is where you can see what everyone else is reading and give recommendations to our community of readers. You can also join our Westport Reading Challenge Facebook Group and talk books all summer long.
Why should you join the challenge? Because as Rita L., one of last year’s participants, said: “The Westport Library’s Summer Reading Challenge is one of the best in the state! I love seeing what everyone else is reading and getting ideas about books that I end up LOVING but never would have read otherwise! Reading is my favorite hobby, and the Summer Reading Challenge takes me to the next level every year!”
Kids’ Summer Reading Club 2024
Starting Saturday, June 1, children may sign up for our Summer Reading Program, which continues through Labor Day weekend, wrapping up September 2.
Read anything, anytime, anywhere all summer long.
Register online and keep track of minutes read. For every 100 minutes, you can decorate a summer sun that will be displayed in the Library. Earn a treat from Shake Shack at 500 minutes. When you reach 1,000 minutes, you can choose a book to keep from our selection of titles.
For more summer fun and prizes, stop in the Children’s Library to play summer bingo and earn more free books.
Starting Saturday, June 1, children may sign up for our Summer Reading Program, which continues through Labor Day weekend.
Read anything, anytime, anywhere all summer long.
Register online and keep track of minutes read. For every 100 minutes, you can decorate a summer sun that will be displayed in the Library. Earn a treat from Shake Shack at 500 minutes. When you reach 1,000 minutes, you can choose a book to keep from our selection of titles. For more summer fun and prizes, play summer bingo and earn more free books.
Signup begins: Saturday, June 1
Summer Reading ends: Monday, September 2
Our thanks to the Westport Young Women’s League for sponsoring our summer reading program and to Shake Shack for providing our 500-minute prize.
Registration is now open for The Westport Library’s summer learning camps: Camp Explore and Summer Learning Clubs.
Camp Explore returns for its fifth year of free STEAM exploration, with workshops kicking off June 25 and running through late July. Among the courses offered this year are Coding LightLego with Josh Burker for kids entering grades 7-9 (June 25-27), Sculpture with Iyaba Ibo Mandingo for grades 6-8 (July 9-11), and Bats Langley's Impressionist Picnic also for grades 6-8 (July 23-25).
Summer Learning Clubs integrate math, literacy, and STEAM activities into a thematic approach, with each class blending inquiry, design, research, writing, and the arts. Taught by certified teachers, this program melds traditional academic activities into a Project Based Learning experience and student-driven study. The Library offers three sessions for kids entering first through eighth grades, with the majority of classes held Tuesday and Wednesday of each week: Three-hour classes for grades 1-2 and also for grades 3-5, and two-hour classes for middle schoolers.
Starting June 25 and running until August 14, the weekly sessions for 2024 include: plant science (June 25-26), collage and mosaic (July 1-2), poetry (July 9-10), environmental sciences (July 16-17), paper and print making (July 23-24), music (July 30-31), and edible science (August 6-7). For the week of August 13-14, grades 1-2 will focus on the Olympics, with grades 3-5 and middle schoolers covering story telling. There will also be a standalone class held August 19 on middle school organizational skills.
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“Camp Explore and the Summer Learning Clubs are two of our most popular offerings,” said Youth Services Director Mary Parmelee. “They’re a great way to get kids active in the summer, keep their minds working and growing, and apply many of the concepts they’ve learned in school in a way that is both social and fun.”
In addition to Camp Explore and the Summer Learning Clubs, the Children’s Library’s early literacy programming will continue to be offered throughout the summer. For details, visit the Children’s Library events page.
Camp Explore and the Summer Learning Clubs are brought to the Library by the continuing generosity of Roz and Bud Siegel.
Once again in 2024, students are invited to enter a youth poetry contest sponsored by The Westport Garden Club, the Westport Arts Advisory Committee, Town Poet Laureate Jessica Noyes McEntee, and The Westport Library.
The contest is affiliated with the National Garden Club’s Youth Poetry Contest and enables youth to embrace their creativity through the art of writing.
The theme for the 2024 competition is: “I Spy With My Little Eye, Something Green Outside – Celebrating Our Green World.”
***
Who Can Enter:
- Students in kindergarten through ninth grade.
- Including public and private schools, home-schooled students, special education, English as a Second Language, and general education students.
***
Guidelines for Entries:
- All entries must be typed and titled.
- Include the participant's name, address, age, grade, and school on the back of the entry and the preferred email address for correspondence.
- All entries become the property of National Garden Clubs, Inc.
- Poems do not have to rhyme.
- Poems may be traditional verse, acrostics, blank verse, cinquains, diamond poems, limericks, or Haiku.
- The theme should not be used as the title of any poetry. (When judging, the title is worth 10 points.)
- Poems should be submitted by email to: westportctgardenclub@gmail.com by January 5, 2024.
***
Scale of Points
Title: 10%
Content: 40%
Creativity: 30%
Style: 20%
Total: 100%
***
Entries are due by January 5. The poems selected by a jury committee will then be submitted to the regional organization, New England Garden Clubs, for another round of judging. The region's final selections will then be submitted for National Garden Club Awards, where winning entries will be compiled into a booklet and made available to the winners.
Locally, poets will be invited to read from their work at a library event, open to the public to celebrate poetry in April 2024.
To view the 2023 winning entries, including local Westporter Owen Cloherty, click here.
Winter reading is back at The Westport Library! So warm up with a good book and join us this winter for a fun reading program.
Starting January 12 and running through March 10, log your reading minutes to earn paper mittens that will decorate the Children's Library. We will display the mittens in the Library for all to see!
Get an activity sheet when you sign up, a cool treat at 250 minutes, and earn a book to keep at 500 minutes!
Read anything, anytime, anywhere.
Related: Best Kids' Books of 2023
From now through December 21, and starting up again after midterms in January, The Westport Library will be teaming with students from Staples High School to establish a near-peer tutoring program.
The program, to be held in the Children’s Library space, will feature Staples students tutoring local middle school and elementary school students in a variety of subjects. This is a drop-in program available between 4 pm and 8 pm, Monday through Thursday, with the tutor availability being posted weekly. (Click here to see the weekly schedule.)
“We’re so excited to bring back this program and thrilled to partner with these amazing students from Staples to provide this service,” said Jeanmarie Ryan, Westport Library teen services librarian. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for younger kids who need some extra help to get it in a supportive environment, while also benefitting the Staples students who get the chance to give back to the community.”
Tutors will focus on specific subject areas including English, math, science, social studies, and even programming and Mandarin. All tutors are past participants or have received a letter of recommendation from a current or previous teacher.
Adults with students under the age of 12 are required to stay in the Children’s Library while their child is being tutored.
