BETHLEHEM — Area schools are letting out for the year and the fun and idleness of summer is finally coming into view for kids throughout the area. Many if not most parents and teachers hope that students will spend at least some of their summer days in the company of a good book. Not only to stave off summer learning loss but perhaps also for the sheer pleasure of reading. Public libraries are instrumental in this.
“Our summer reading program is the biggest part of the year,” said Geoff Kirkpatrick, director of the Bethlehem Public Library. “It’s the Super Bowl for librarians.”
This summer, following the lead of other public libraries in the area and around the country, the library will be hosting a drag story hour as part of its summer reading program. Albany drag performer Noelle Diamond is slated to read to preschool-aged children at a July 13 program the library’s website describes as an “age-appropriate” offering designed to help children “develop empathy, learn about gender diversity and difference, and tap into their own creativity.”
Similar to pushback to such events around the nation, opposition to the program has cropped up on several Bethlehem-area Facebook pages — including the page for the Bethlehem Republican Committee. The Rockwell Falls Public Library in Lake Luzerne recently bowed to public pressure and canceled a similar event that had been planned for this month.
Kirkpatrick does not plan on following suit. “We expect the program to go off as planned,” he said.
“Our job as a library is to provide the opportunity for a program that talks about the existing gender diversity that already exists in the community,” Kirkpatrick said. “Children are not immune from being aware that these conversations are happening and this program is is an opportunity for parents to have those conversations with their children right there. Parents are with kids in the program.”
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