The Mayor’s Summer Reading Club selected Amari’s Bike Adventure for its pre-K to first grade age group this year, which features a story that takes place on the Atlanta BeltLine. In the story, Amari is excited to ride her bike in the Art on the Atlanta BeltLine Lantern Parade, but still needs to learn how to ride without training wheels. With a little help from her family and friends, Amari learns that practice and perseverance make all the difference.
In the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club, books are selected for age groups ranging from infants to age eight, and children are invited to reading events where they can also participate in other fun and educational activities. Amari’s Bike Adventure is authored by the Rollins Center for Language & Literacy at the Atlanta Speech School and illustrated by Maurice W. Jackson, Jr. The Summer Reading Club initiative is produced by the City of Atlanta and Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students (GEEARS) with support from PNC, United Way of Atlanta and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
The Mayor’s Summer Reading Club closed out the season with some fun festivities in the past few weeks. Last weekend, the Alliance Theatre Summer Creative Drama Camp performed a rendition of Amari’s Bike Adventure as part of the program’s closing festivities.
The Alliance Theatre camps are one- to two-week summer sessions for youths that culminate in a performance with a literary theme. The children, kindergartners through first graders, began rehearsing their performance on Amari’s Bike Adventure on Monday for the Friday and Saturday performance.
Throughout the week, the children did various educational craft projects and created their own sets and props, including those cool bike helmets! Many of the children participating in the performance were already familiar with the Atlanta BeltLine and join their parents on the trails regularly.
In July, officers from the Atlanta Police Department’s Path Force Unit gathered on the Atlanta BeltLine for a reading of Amari’s Bike Adventure. Children came out to the Historic Fourth Ward Skatepark and Rose Circle Park to hear the reading by the Atlanta BeltLine’s own dedicated police unit. Police officers also autographed books for the children.
The Path Force Unit patrols all open Atlanta BeltLine parks and trails, as well as adjacent neighborhoods, seven days a week. Be sure to say hello the next time you see an officer on the trail!
You and your little ones can participate in the Art on the Atlanta BeltLine Parade, too! No time to make a lantern? Get one here, or donate to our fundraising campaign and receive one as a thank-you gift!
