FULLERTON : Reading Program Lures 2,500 Children

A summer reading program has attracted more than 2,500 children and scores of commercial sponsors who supply prizes to avid young readers, library officials said.

Called Top Hat and Tales: The Magic of Reading, the program rewards the amount of time children spend reading during the summer with prizes from Disneyland, AMC movie theaters, Del Taco, Holiday Roller Rink and other sponsors.

“There are always a few kids who don’t like to read, and those incentives are sometimes just enough to get them going,” said children’s librarian Carolyn Eckert. “Hopefully, they read a book or two that they enjoy, and then they take off.”

The yearly program, which started in June, is intended to spark interest in reading and using the public library, Eckert said. It also encourages children to maintain their reading skills over the summer vacation, she said.

Children in the program used to keep track only of how many books they read over the summer, Eckert said. But a race for the most books did not encourage children to labor over longer, more difficult books, which is often a more rewarding challenge, she said.

Now, the more hours the children spend reading, the more prizes they will earn, Eckert said. The program ends Aug. 28.