Summer reading is not just for kids! Adults can join Reading Adventures: Explore Your World to visit faraway places through books.  Pick up a Summer Reading Passport at any RPL branch library to get started on your Reading Adventures!

June 15-August 10 is plenty of time to fill your passport!  Each book you read or listen to gets one continent stamped on your passport.  The eighth, and last stamp is RPL’s mascot “Ripple”.  Once your passport has all eight stamps, you will get a small token for being such a great reader.  Your completed passport will be entered into a Grand Prize drawing – each branch will have a goodie basket with book sale coupons, vouchers to the Virginia Repertory Theatre, tickets to the Byrd Theatre, and more!

Need some books that let you travel the world from the comfort of your own home?  RPL has an amazing collection of contemporary foreign fiction in English (or English translation).  You can find some for every continent – yes, even Anarctica, which is so inhospitable that it has only temporary human populations.  (The name of each continent is a link to a fiction list).

Africa – Fiction from the “cradle of humankind”, also called “the Mother continent”.

Antarctica – Fiction from the most inhospitable place on Earth, which has no permanent human residents.

Asia – The continent with all the superlatives:  the biggest continent, the oldest civilizations, the most people, speaking the most languages.   Asia also has the highest mountains and the tallest buildings.  

Europe – Although less than 10% of the world’s population lives in Europe, they consume 50% of the world’s chocolate!

North America – The only continent that includes every type of climate.  

Oceania & Australia (Australasia) – fiction from the continent with two (or maybe three) names.

South America – home of the Amazon rainforest, the world’s most biodiverse place, containing 40% of the world’s plant and animal species.

Just for fun, check out Passport Not Necessary, humorous travel memoirs that let you have all the fun of travel, but none of inconvenience, mess, or expense of actually going on a trip.

And for even more fun, check out the Where Will Your Ticket Take You spinner wheel at the Main library reference desk.  Spin the wheel to decide your fictional destination with a title set in one of the seven continents.