Summer Reading Has Begun! (And I Think They Actually Like it)

What a couple of weeks it has been!
Summer Reading has officially begun here in my library, and with it came our first teen-focused program.  Heroes & Villains is off to a booming start, with over 25 teens signed up (HUGE for teenagers), and some even having reached a checkpoint already.
There are a lot of little components, which confused me for a while, but I think I've finally gotten it to the point where it is easy to digest.
So, here's the final rundown of our Heroes & Villains SRP Kickoff!

Marketing & Materials

Each teen that signs up receives a contact card (punch card):

Teens can "check-in" with us once a week to receive a punch on their card for any ONE spaces.  They turn in a Debriefing form{below} with a short review and we check to make sure the space they're getting a punch for is the same as the one on their form.  A completed card is their entry into our grand prize raffle!  Thanks to a generous donation from our library Friends group, we are able to offer a Kindle Fire AND a Wireless Gaming chair as our 2 grand prizes.

Now, my other concern was how to keep them interested throughout the summer.  One huge draw for them is that they can turn in as many forms as they wish per week, so even though they only get one punch on their card, and can only win a grand prize from those, they can enter as many forms as they want for chances to win weekly raffles as well.  

Pieces of Programming: Zombie Week!

The idea for Zombie week started with the release of Dead Island, the ultra-horrific but greatly anticipated video game.  I knew my teens would love to get their hands on the game, and that it would have to be an after-hours event for them to really get the opportunity to play it in our teen room.  An exact week after I started working on their night, I got a visit from a dance instructor in the area who was trying to find ways to connect our library kids to her studio.  Her studio is actually a partner of our library, so I was more than happy to help in any way possible.  From chit-chatting with her, we finally decided to have one of her instructors visit the library during drama club and teach Thriller to my tweens!

Thus, Youth Services Zombie Week was born.

Though we called it a "week", the program really only consisted of two programs.  One for tweens and one for teens.  For the tweens, we had a very special Zombie edition of Drama Club, while my teens were treated to after-hours gaming that featured Dead Island{score}.

Our warm up games for Drama Club were Zombie based on this day and included a riveting round of "Don't Wake the Zombie"

Then came actually making our zombies.