I don’t mean to brag, but since about 5th grade, I have developed — dare I say? — a superpower. I can read and walk at the same time.

I’m not just talking about audiobooks. I mean I can stroll along busy streets, through intersections, and around natural hazards, all while actively reading a book in my hands. I can follow the story. I have trained my peripheral brain to alert me to physical threats.

Why did I need to develop this skill?

To put it simply: some books I just can’t set down. It’s not a surprise that I can still follow the story while strolling. Sometimes I can’t get out.

The first books to completely capture my attention were science fiction. I discovered Robert A. Heinlein somewhere around 5th grade. I got so into that story (Have Spacesuit, Will Travel) that I was glued to it from my first awakening to final, heavy-lidded blink. I learned that there are very few things you actually have to stop reading to do: showers and sleep, mainly. Walking to school and back was easy.

The world of the book is so riveting, so compelling, that sometimes it’s just way better than your actual life.

In life much is tedious and boring. In the book, everything is zipping along with purpose, interspersed with suspenseful and dramatic shocks.

In reality people’s motives and actions — including our own — are maddeningly opaque. In books characters are clear and decisive.

In far too many of our hours we wonder if the destination is worth the trip. But in the book, in the glorious book, it’s all headed for a big shift in the universe.

Too often and for many people, especially children, the teaching of reading is reduced to drill. Eventually the drilling kills the magic. This is a great tragedy both for the child and for the nation.

The point of the public library is not that you have to read. It’s that you get to read. While striding through my blue collar hometown as a lad I was traveling through time, adventuring in space, encountering and thwarting galactic threats.

Then came a period of Irish short stories. Then haiku. Philosophy. Spy novels. In that time, I must have poured millions of words through my eyes, tamped down by each step. Why?

Well, for fun.

And that’s one of the reasons our upcoming Summer Reading focuses on something too little valued these days: a sense of play. “Summer 2025: Level Up at Your Library” (see https://www.ireadprogram.org/resources/summer-2025-level-up-at-your-library) introduces itself like this: “Play is one of the ways we learn to relate to others, to think in new ways, and to foster friendships, new and old.”

Our Summer Reading Challenge started June 1 and continues until July 31.

The program will officially close on Saturday, August 6 to give an extra week for people to complete their reading.

The individual goal is 1,000 minutes of reading, and the community goal is 1 million minutes. We’ve hit that three years in a row. That’s time that children have spent not only having a good time, but gathering the many benefits that reading brings to all of us: an increased sense of empathy, a better understanding of what goes on in the world and how best to respond to it, an expanding of both literal and emotional vocabulary. It’s adventure, and about as safe as adventure can be.

Incidentally, our Summer Reading Program isn’t just for kids. We definitely focus on ages 0-11, but there are prizes and incentives for teens (11-17) and even adults (18 and up).

So by August, I expect all of us to be skilled at dodging traffic as we level up our reading logs. Ready, set …. walk to your library. And walk back. With a book.

Jamie LaRue is Executive Director of the Garfield County Public Library District. His opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Library Board of Trustees. Please email comments to jlarue@gcpld.org.