Julianne Newberry, children’s librarian at the library, said the library’s Summer Reading Program will kickoff at 1 p.m. Friday with an appearance of Dennis Porter of Happy Face Entertainment. Although she’s not quite sure what the show will entail, she assumed it would have magic tricks and audience participation, much like what he worked into his pirate skit of a year ago.

Like Porter, the other programs lined up for the summer were popular attractions in past years.

“We very much book our performers on how they’ve been received,” Newberry said.

Other performers scheduled include:

• Storyteller Joyce Slater, 10:30 a.m. June 7.

• Mad Science of Kansas City, 1 p.m. June 15.

• JoHo Storyteller, 1 p.m. June 28.

• Closing Carnival, 1 p.m. July 23.

The library staff also will have craft activities for young visitors, Newberry said. Those will include such activities as origami, ceramic painting and making an Australian musical instrument, which are all tied to other activities.

“We’re doing a number of different things with activities geared for three different age groups,” Newberry said.

But at the heart of summer reading is, of course, reading, and Newberry said the library was starting a new reading log system this year.

Children are given a book bag with log chart when they register for summer reading. Newberry said preschool or early elementary grade students could fill in a space for each book read or read to them. Older students with bigger books fill in a space for every 30 minutes of reading or each chapter read, she said.

“For every 10 spaces they fill in, they will be able to choose a prize from out of the prize bag,” Newberry said. “They could earn up to five prizes if they fill out the whole chart.”

And although the activities will end with the July 23 carnival, youngsters will have until Aug. 17 to turn in charts for prizes, Newberry said.

“Summer reading really seems to fly by when you look back on it, but we’re going to have eight great weeks of crafts and programming,” she said.