Johnson Public Library: May 2016

Well, it’s no secret that reading improves people’s minds, but have you heard the about the studies proving that reading actually improves people’s lives as well?

Studies show that people who read are more likely to vote,exercise and be more cultural. Reading literary fiction has been proven to enhance a person’s empathy and ability to understand others. Reading improves your memory and wards off Alzheimer’s disease, improves one’s writing abilities, and is more impacting on children’s cognitive development than their parents’ level of education.

And most people know that listening to audiobooks is quite fun and entertaining. Many folks are aware of audiobooks being used in schools as an aid for struggling readers or kids with differing learning styles. Audiobooks allow the listener to retain their visualization skills without the task of “decoding” the words on the page and losing the meaning. HOWEVER! Recent studies (and trend) indicate that listening to an audiobook can be a helpful way for anyone to access and enjoy the powerful benefits of reading books. New research shows that reading and listening are strikingly similar cognitive processes, proving that the benefits of reading can be transferred to listening to books. Additionally, audiobooks enable a child to listen to books above his or her current reading level, providing a cognitive bridge to more advanced ideas and thinking.

So… SHABAM, right?

I bring all this up as a way to introduce the very exciting bit of news that your very own public librarians have really got your back. Our audiobook collection for kids and teens has been woefully understocked, and we decided it was high time to do something about it. In order to keep our book collection vital and up-to-date, the budget for our collection is used primarily for books, with less opportunity to add to our audiobook collection as they are significantly more expensive and would dramatically eat into our book budget. Which is why we decided to ask good old Ben and Jerry for some help! We wrote and were awarded a grant from the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation for $750 to spend exclusively on audiobooks for the kid’s and teen’s collection! We were able to purchase 34 new books on cd, all of which are ready and waiting to be checked out at Johnson Public Library. (Full list is forthcoming)

And with this fabulous influx of audiobooks to the collection, we truly feel it will be possible to keep the audiobooks rolling in (1 or 2 a month) in order to continue to build the collection at a doable rate.

And now for the list:

Children’s and Middle Grade Titles:

The entire series of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” by Rick Riordan