A scientific cat-astrophe has occurred at the St. Albert Public Library, and it’s up to this city’s finest young readers to clean up the mess.
The St. Albert Public Library’s summer reading game kicks off this June 27 at the downtown and Jensen Lakes branches. About 2,000 youths are expected to participate. Now in its 44th year, the game aims to give youths a fun way to keep up their literacy levels during the summer break.
This year’s youth game is called Mad Lab: Catastrophic Chaos and has a mad science theme, said summer reading game programmer Sam Grombach. Players will serve as interns at the lab/home of Dr. Cranium, the world’s greatest scientist and authority on everything you’d care to mention, except, apparently, workplace safety.
“Before the interns got started, Dr. Cranium was going to celebrate with his staff, called the Brainiacs,” Grombach said — a celebration where they would drink a potion that would cause “stupendous hats” to appear on their heads.
“He asked one of [lab] robots to get him that concoction, but the robot gave him a potion that turned them into cats.”
When asked why Dr. Cranium had such a dangerous substance lying around in the first place, Grombach said, “He’s into cats.”
Grombach said the lab robots have asked the players to retrieve various ingredients so they can craft a potion to turn Dr. Cranium and the Brainiacs back into humans. Doing so will involve various hands-on challenges, such as fishing ingredients out of a pond with a magnet or spotting scientific kitties hidden throughout the library.
Players can take part in one of two games each day, with new games swapped in every Friday, Grombach said. After each game, they will spin a wheel for a suggestion as to which genre of book they should read next. Players fill in fractal-like reading trackers as they read and can turn them in for a chance at movie tickets, gift cards, and other prizes.
Older readers can take part in the Mad Lab: Beware the Nightcrawlers game upstairs, said Sami Mudryk, back for her fourth year with the library’s summer reading game team. Like an escape room, this teen-orientated game sees players solve puzzles as they investigate the mysterious lab of Prof. Rita Von Schurke, a specialist in insect genetic engineering at the University of St. Albert. (Entomophobes beware; the website for this game sends creepy crawly bugs skittering across your screen.)
Adults can take part in the Super Summer Reading Challenge for a chance to win prizes such as free books and tickets to STARFest.
Kids and teens who register in the summer reading game get a free book from the McCoy Foundation.
Science on set
Grombach and the reading game team were putting the finishing touches on Dr. Cranium’s lab in Forsyth Hall when the Gazette visited them last week. The lab consists of six rooms, including a kitchen (complete with robot fridge and stove), bathroom (home to a cardboard toilet and giant microbes), basement (with gem mines), and greenhouse (which contains a goofy looking Venus flytrap). Sharp-eyed players may notice books on the doctor’s shelves referencing the 2024, 2023, and 2022 reading games. Jensen Lakes Library players will perform their tasks in that building’s Gadget Garage.
Mudryk said she used to take part in the library’s reading game as a youth and has now come full circle as one of its organizers.
“Honestly, it is the best job,” she said.
“It’s really exciting to see the participants enjoy the game and watch their literacy levels go up.”
The summer reading game wraps up Aug. 17. Visit srg.sapl.ca for details.
