With students and teachers on vacation, school campuses are quiet. Not so at the Manteca Public Library. It’s where the fun things are with four-pawed friends and space-adventure puppets and other attractions entertaining and educating both the old and the young.

There’s Paws for Reading every Saturday in June from 1 to 3 p.m. Paws for Reading is a program featuring trained therapy dogs. The program will have children reading to the dogs. “They are trained to do that,” said library staff Ruthanne Bassett.

The canine friends are brought to the library by members of the group called Paws 4 Friends. “The dogs and their owners come in and the kids come and read to the dogs,” Bassett explained.

Bassett is involved in the Summer Reading Club offered every year during the summer and is now in full swing.  This is a program that is not just for the young but also for teens and adults, Bassett said.

“It’s open to anyone from age zero to 99,” she said of the reading program which not only allows reading enthusiasts to do what they enjoy doing but also gives them a chance to win prizes based on the number of books that they read.

“We have little prizes that they get, like for adults, after they read six books, they get a book bag and a book light. Teens and kids get free books,” Bassett said.

Readers keep track of their readings not on the computer but on “open card stock,” like the library’s old card catalogs.

“We tried that one year,” about using the computer to keep track of books read, “it didn’t work. People were just used to having a piece of paper in their hand,” Bassett said with a laugh.

The Paws for Reading is offered just three months out of the year. The other months are September and March.

Below are some of the upcoming weekly shows at the library, all starting at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesdays. Admission is free.

• June 13 – “Tommy’s Space Adventures,” Puppet Art Theater

• June 20 – Steve Chaney & Corny Crow’s Library Show

• June 27 – The Perfect Square (crafts)

• July 11 – Sparkles the Clown

• July 18 – “Don O’Brien, “Music Dreams from Around the World.”

• July 25 – Wild Things Animal Show

• August 1 – Summer Reading Finale and Back to School Fun.