Turn reading into fun and games at the New York Public Library. The first ever Summer Reading Games Day celebrates play, literacy, and games at a FREE all day event for kids and adults, including videogames, tabletop games and science games, all based on books. Plus, there’s a special program for educators.
Your kids are going to play video games anyway, so they may as well learn something at the same time.
Summer Reading Games Day builds upon the success of International Games Day and the fun of Summer Reading, on Saturday, July 29, 11am to 5pm. Registration is required to ensure space.
SEE ALSO: Our Guide to Free and Cheap Summer Fun for NYC Kids
Here’s the schedule for Summer Reading Games Day:
11 a.m. – 5 p.m. / Audience: Educators (Grades 6-12), All Ages
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD is an open world, adventure game by Nintendo, released in 2017. Open world games have a nonlinear, modular structure containing primary objectives plus secondary goals and discoverable secrets (BREATH OF THE WILD, for example, contains 900 hidden Korok seeds). Its topographical map is based on director Hidemaro Fujibayashi’s hometown of Kyoto and nearly every 3D object is climbable. It is available currently for the Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo Switch.
11 a.m. – 1 p.m. / Audience: Educators (Grades 6-8), All Ages
EVERYTHING is a 2017 experimental, open world, sandbox game designed by Irish-born artist David OReilly. Players can control thousands of unique things, ranging from subatomic particles to whole universes. Audio for the game includes lectures by British philosopher Alan Watts (1915-1973) who wrote more than 25 books, including THE WAY OF ZEN (1957) and PSYCHOTHERAPY EAST AND WEST (1961). EVERYTHING was published by Double Fine Productions and is currently available for the Sony PlayStation 4, Mac OS X, and Windows.
1 – 3 p.m. / Audience: Educators (Grades 8-10), Teens
WALDEN, A GAME reimagines Henry David Thoreau’s seminal work of Transcendentalism as an open world, survival game. Set in 1845, players must balance the basic human needs of food, shelter and water with the desire to find inspiration from the natural world. Created by USC Game Innovation Lab, WALDEN was released for Mac OS X and Windows on July 4, 2017 to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Thoreau’s birth in 1817.
3 – 5 p.m. / Audience: Educators (Grades 10-12), Adults
WHAT REMAINS OF EDITH FINCH? is the follow-up to Giant Sparrow’s UNFINISHED SWAN (2012) and the debut release from publisher Annapurna Interactive. Drawing heavily from H.P. Lovecraft and Weird Fiction, it tells the story of Edith Finch, her family, and the deadly curse which seems to have consumed each member of her family tree. The game is composed of twelve brief vignettes, each of which describes a different character’s untimely demise. This unique, creepy, literary game is available on the Sony PlayStation 4 and Windows.
11 a.m. – 5 p.m. / Audience: Educators (K-12), All Ages
Tabletop Games: The Blood of an Englishman, The Colonists, Dixit, The Metagame, Mole Rats in Space, Outfoxed, Qwixx, Spyfall, Tales & Games: The Three Little Pigs, Timeline: American History, Tiny Polka Dot, Tsuro of the Seas.
Contact Thomas Knowlton at thomasknowlton@nypl.org with specific questions.
NYPLarcade is an opportunity to play, watch, and discuss independent, experimental, and thought-provoking games in a library setting. Think of it as a book club, but for video games.
TeenLIVE programs are sponsored by the Andreas C. Dracopoulos Family Endowment for Young Audiences.
The New York Public Library is a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With 92 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years.
The New York Public Library serves more than 18 million patrons who come through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding.
Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.
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