Booth Library held an event on Library Quad called Scary Story Time and Family Reading for families with younger children to read stories together during Family Fun Fest.

Throughout Family Fun Fest, there were several activities for families to participate in, but most were high action. A family reading space allowed families with young children to settle down and take a break from running around by reading books.

Amy Odwarka, the communication studies, philosophy and religion and psychology librarian at Eastern, said that many of the events are marketed towards their families that included siblings that were already in college or thinking about attending college.

However, these events may not be age appropriate for students that have siblings that are many years younger than them or students whose families brought their younger cousins to the event. 

Odwarka wanted to create events for those family members to enjoy as well.

“I was part of the committee for the university holistically for Family Weekend,” Odwarka said. “And the library has actually never been involved in Family Weekend. So this is a first for us and we’re very excited to be part of it… We were trying to think of something that could kind of go along with Halloween, and that we could have families involved with.”

Families could go up to a cart, pick a book from it and read it before moving on to other fun activities in the library quad. The books featured at the event are all children’s books from the Ballenger Teacher Center. 

“All the books have some sort of Halloween theme to them, whether they’re creepy or scary or just kind of fun and cute,” Odwarka said. “One of the things that we really try to strive for is making sure that we have a diverse amount of books.”

This is Odwarka’s first Family Weekend at Eastern. Despite Booth not being previously involved with Family Weekend, she was very happy to help get the library involved.

“This is my first year being part of EIU, and it’s been one of my missions is to kind of be on a listening tour and find out ‘where could Booth be involved?”’ Odwarka said. “(Booth) hasn’t previously so I don’t actually really know the background, but I was really happy to get us involved.”

Katja Benz can be reached at 581-2812 or at kkbenz@eiu.edu.