The Pearl River County Library system has had to move its reading programs online due to the pandemic, but the library system is introducing new online reading challenges for children and adults.

The libraries have an October reading bingo game for adults and young adults through Beanstack, a new website service for reading challenges being provided through the Mississippi Library Commission, said Megan Miller with the Margaret Reed Crosby Memorial Library. Patrons can visit pearlriver.beanstack.com to register an individual or family account and participate in reading challenges. In the month of October, readers can earn digital tickets for each genre in which they read a book. At the end of the month, the Poplarville and Picayune libraries will hold a drawing for a Halloween themed basket.

“Adults like games and prizes too and we have offered children’s reading challenges during the summer and the children all love it,” said Miller. “With Beanstack we are able to reach out and create challenges that are more for adults as well, so we’re trying to create new programs and do our best to help engage more patrons of more age groups.”

Most challenges will be countywide, so patrons at either library can participate. The libraries will also have some long term reading challenges, like 100 books to read before college and reading a thousand books before kindergarten, where parents promise to read their child a book a day.

“If a child comes in and says they read their thousand books we will give them a really fantastic mystery prize,” said Miller.

Like the summer story time, fall story time has also gone digital. The Margaret Reed Crosby Memorial Library and the Poplarville Public Library are working together to create and share videos of staff reading stories each week, along with craft videos. Story time videos will be shared every Tuesday and Thursday at 10 a.m. until November 19 at prclsonlinekids.wordpress.com and on the PRCLS Online Kids Club on Facebook.

Summer story time videos had approximately 70 views per video after a week of being posted, said Miller.

There are two upcoming book sales at the Margaret Reed Crosby Memorial Library, both hosted by the Friends of the Library. Weather permitting, a cookbook sale also featuring paperbacks and children’s books will be held Saturday, Oct. 3 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. A fiction sidewalk sale will be held Oct. 17 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Book sales raise funds for the library’s book buying budget.

The Margaret Reed Crosby Memorial Library has an ongoing paperback book sale in the library foyer during regular operating hours.