2008 News

June 12, 2008

Jiminey Cricket, Commissioner! 
Commissioner Jim Cawley Helps Launch Library’s Summer Reading Program by Eating a Chocolate-Covered Bug

As a room full of exuberant students, parents and curious onlookers created a buzz inside the children’s book section of the Doylestown Library Center June 11, Bucks County Commissioner Chairman Jim Cawley joined Doylestown Borough Council President Det Ansinn for a unique wing-eating competition.

Dessert style.

“Tastes like chocolate, just a little crunchy,” Chairman Cawley reported, seconds after ingesting a chocolate-covered cricket to launch the Bucks County Free Library’s Summer Reading Program.
Cawley and Ansinn ate the insects to generate excitement about the free library system’s 2008 summer reading program themes, Catch the Reading Bug (Pre-K to grade 6) and Metamorphosis (teens). The launch was the brainchild of Martina Kominiarek who, as executive director of the Bucks County Free Library system, oversees seven free library branches throughout the county.

Before eating the bug, Commissioner Cawley asked each of the students to promise that they would read at least one book this summer. They raised their hands and Commissioner Cawley made good on his promise, pretending to faint for dramatic effect. After laughing and realizing that Cawley didn’t really faint after eating the bug, many of the children volunteered to eat a bug too. They were rewarded with t-shirts and new books.

For more information on the summer reading program, please visit your local library or access the Web site, www.buckslib.org.