Fleming library kicks off summer reading with live animals

An alligator, an armadillo, a capybara and an owl were among the animals that helped the Fleming Community Library open summer reading season with a hands-on kickoff Thursday afternoon in Fleming. The library’s “Unearth a Story” event began at 3 p.m. at the Fleming Community Library and brought live wildlife into the room as families launched into the season’s reading program.

Wildlike Encounters brought the animal lineup, which also included a Tegu lizard, cockatoo, macaw and boa constrictor. The mix gave the kickoff a built-in science lesson as well as a crowd-pleasing start to summer, turning the library into a place where children could connect books with real animals instead of treating reading as a classroom assignment. For families in town, it offered a free afternoon activity tied directly to the start of summer break.

The event also underscored how the library operates in Fleming. The Fleming Community Library is an intergovernmental effort involving the Town of Fleming, the Frenchmen RE-1 School District and the Fleming Library Board. It offers reading and materials for all ages, along with an annual Summer Reading Program and weekly Story Time for children of school age. That structure makes the kickoff part of a larger effort to keep the library visible and active when school is out and families are looking for things to do.

The 2026 theme, “Unearth a Story,” comes from the Collaborative Summer Library Program and is built around discovery, with a focus on STEAM and humanities connections. In practical terms, that meant the library used live animals to invite children into curiosity-driven learning at the exact point when summer reading begins. Wildlife Encounters says its library summer reading presentations usually feature six animal ambassadors in a 40- to 45-minute interactive and educational program, a format that matches the kind of engagement the Fleming library was aiming for.

In Logan County, where the population was 21,528 in the 2020 census, a program like this carries particular weight. Fleming is a small rural town in northeast Colorado, and events that pull families together can become anchor points for the season. The town has already used summer reading participants in visible community projects, including a splash pad mural, showing how the program reaches beyond library walls and into the public spaces families use every day.