BY MOLLIE BROWN/For the Reporter

CALERA – It’s only been a week since the kids got out of school, and they’re already on your last nerve. Before you do anything crazy, dig this.

The Roy Downs Calera Public Library kicked off its summer reading program June 3. Every Monday through July at 10 a.m., children can bring a snack and watch a movie in the library’s media room. Parents are asked to read movie reviews to ensure age appropriateness.

“Kindergarten age and up are invited to come to the library on Activity Wednesday. We’ve planned a Lego Day, WII Game Day that will involve sports and dance and we have specific activity days,” said Rhonda Cracraft, a volunteer with the Friends of the Public Library.

The 4-H center nocturnal animals will visit the library June 26. In the month of July, kids will really dig making edible worms, bubble worms and a wormery to take home to learn how worms tunnel and recycle dirt. Then there’s Mud Day, a day of getting dirty in a mud pit, making mud sculptures, mud paintings, mud bird nests and mud bugs.

“We’ll have three programs on Thursdays,” Cracraft said. “At 9 a.m., newborns to two-year olds will participate in Eric Carle’s The Very Ready Reading Program, which is seven simple things you can do each day to help your child’s early literacy development, then a program at 10 a.m. for 3- to 5-year-olds. At 3 p.m. for any child 6 and older will be stories and crafts that go along with the Wednesday activity.”

Free programs for adults include an emergency preparedness class June 8, an educational class June 17 to teach e-book readers how to utilize the library’s resources and a social networking class July 15 to familiarize teens and adults how to connect on Facebook and Twitter. Attendees are encouraged to bring a portable device if they have one. A mechanics class is planned to teach basic car maintenance.

The library also plans to hold a steampunk convention. Steampunk is a genre of science fiction with fantasy or horror themes set in an alternative Victorian age.