Blog: Beanstack

Annual Ice Cream Social and Summer Reading Kick off 6.25.26

Posted on by Cait Quinn

This Thursday, June 25th at 1pm, join the library staff in celebrating the start of summer…reading! We’ve once again invited Dairy Delight to dish up their tasty ice cream to all our friends in the community. We’ll also be hosting a dinosaur or two, a musical guest, and the Friends of the Malden Public Library will be hosting a book give away to help encourage kids to find their first read of the summer.

The event is free, but in order to move things efficiently, we ask that each family sign up for our Summer Reading Challenge in Beanstack ahead of time. If you participated last year, you can just log into your account and go to the challenges section and select Dig Into Reading Challenge. If you haven’t used Beanstack before you can log in on the website:  bit.ly/BeanstackMPL or download the mobile app via your device store. Search Beanstack and then follow the prompts. Hate tech? Stop by the Information desk and we can help get you started with an account, or just log your minutes for you.

And even if you can’t make it, we’d still love to see you this summer. We will have 8 weeks packed with activities for all ages. Oh and for reader’s who complete their reading challenges, we have prizes provided by local businesses to thank you for helping meet our community reading goals. For kids and teens, we’ll have coupons for food at local restaurants. For adults we’ll be holding a weekly raffle for bigger prizes. And then, for the end of summer the top reader in each category will receive a grand prize. For kids there is a family membership to the Museum of Science. For Teens a gift certificate for 4 to Boda Borg. And finally Adults will win a city of Malden rain barrel with a custom library logo.

Find Yourself in a Book Challenge 9.1.25-6.30.26

Posted on by Cait Quinn

Summer is over, the Autumn crush has started, and you may be feeling like reading for pleasure isn’t a priority right now. But reading for yourself should always be a priorty! And to give you a little encouragement MPL has set up a low stakes reading challenge.

Step 1: Log in or sign up to Beanstack either on the web or via the Beanstack Tracker app. (Make sure you are signed into Malden Public Library’s Challenge site. Don’t use Beanstack Go)

Step 2: Register for the “Find Yourself in a Book Challenge”

Step 3: Read (at least) one book a month that is strictly for you. Not a school book, something for work, not a side hustle. Just something you think you will enjoy.

Step 4: Collect a stamp from the library that shows you’ve completed the monthly reading. (Bookmarks available at Info and the Children’s desk, so you can log your stamps).

Step 5: Get a stamp for each month between September and June and qualify for a fun enamel pin to celebrate your accomplishment.

That’s it! Just at least one book a month. We know how hard it is to make a reading commitment sometimes. And also how easy it is to let free time slip away without using it to recharge. This challenge is here to combat that with a gentle nudge to do something wholly good for you. And to up the stakes just a little, we are adding a community goal of 10,000 books read by June. The hope is that all the other books you read each month will make their way into our stats and help us celebrate how spectacular our reading community really is. So lets make a commitment together to try to read at least a little bit every month, as a community. It will help inspire the busy library staff to keep up on their reading too, so do us a favor and sign up!