(upbeat music) - PBS Utah's Reading Marathon takes place this November and will highlight all things animal with PAWS and Read for this year's theme.

Education program manager Annie Frazier is here to tell us about this year's kickoff event.

Hi, Annie.

Welcome, thanks for being here.

I love the title for this, PAWS, which is P-A-W-S. - Yes, yeah.

- Very clever.

So, why did you pick an animal theme?

- Well, children love animals.

We love Daniel Tiger and Clifford and Nature Cat, and we have a lot of fun with animals and we just want children to be excited and to slow down, to pause life a little bit and open a book.

- Ah, that's great.

And tell us how it works and what grades can participate.

- So it's during the month of November for children preschool through sixth grade.

We encourage children to read 20 minutes a day, 600 minutes total, or they can be read to if they're emergent readers.

And then they can go back online and enter that they read the 600 minutes and they'll get emailed an Adventure Pass, which will get them tickets into all sorts of venues and exciting things to do around town.

- That's great.

And I love that you do this because reading's so important for kids and it's one of the favorite things they have here at PBS Utah.

So, talk about the importance of reading.

- Well, we know that reading helps with brain development and also helps build those warm memories.

We want children to be excited about reading, we want families to read together, and we want children to see that reading is not only a foundation for academic success, but also life skills and to enjoy the adventures that we can find in books.

- Which is great.

And the kickoff event- - Yes.

- Tell us a little about it.

- So come to the downtown library on Saturday, October 26th.

Wear Halloween costumes, trick-or-treat, get excited, pick up a reading log, and just get ready to have a fun party and get ready to read.

- Great.

Well, Annie, thank you so much for being here and thanks for doing it.

- Thank you.

- And if you'd like to know more about the kickoff event for this year's Reading Marathon, it's October 26th, goes from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM at the City Library, the Main Branch downtown.

Go to pbsutah.org/reading, pbsutah.org/reading.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact."

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