The summer reading program at the Briggs Lawrence County Public Library is hoping to get its participants not only interested in books, but in helping the community’s furry friends, too.

This week, each of the library’s five branches will kick off their “Paws, Claws, Scales and Tales” program for toddlers up to pre-teens.

Cheryl Blankenship, Briggs’ children’s librarian, said the program has been a huge success in the past. It is not only fun for its participants, she said, it is an important part of the continued learning process. She said summer literacy programs help children keep their brains active during the time of year when many of them are preoccupied with non-educational activities.

Each week during the summer, there will be a different animal-related theme that the books, activities and arts and crafts will center around. Kids can win prizes for every five books they read or every 10 books that are read to them by a caregiver.

Blankenship said this year the library will team up with Petland in South Point to provide items for the cats and dogs at county’s shelter. For every 1,000 books the children collectively read at all the branches, Petland will donate items to the shelter.

“They (Petland) will donate whatever the shelter needs,” the librarian said. “It’s something new this year and we are very excited about it.”

She hopes this new program will encourage the children to read even more books than they have before.

Library patrons can also drop off items for the animals at each one of the branches. Blankenship said they are most in need of old towels and rugs and cat litter and cat food.

After the initial kick-offs, the summer program will run from June 12 through July 20.

Programs at the Main branch in Ironton will be: preschool story time, 10:30 a.m. Mondays; school age fun time, 6 p.m. Mondays, toddler times 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and Wednesday.

At the Northern branch at Symmes Valley, preschool time will be at 2 p.m. Monday and school-age fun time will be at 3 p.m. Monday.

Chesapeake will have preschool story time at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and school-age fun time Tuesday at 2 p.m.

Preschool story time will be Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. with school-age fun time Wednesday at 2 p.m. at the Southern branch in South Point.

The Eastern branch will have preschool story time at 10:30 a.m. Thursday and school-age fun time at 2 p.m. Thursday.