Muhlenberg County Public Libraries is proud to name Alexis and Lilly Lear and Layne and Chase Fugate as Kid Librarians for October 2025.
Kid Librarians are chosen monthly to design a juvenile display at the library. Each Kid Librarian may choose a theme for their display, select library materials to highlight and decide how to organize and best show off the chosen titles. New Kid Librarians are selected each month for each library branch (Harbin Memorial and Central City).
Chosen Kid Librarians are acknowledged inside the library with a sign next to their display, as well as being recognized in the local newspapers and on the library’s website and social media accounts.
Central City’s Kid Librarians for October 2025 are Alexis and Lilly Lear. Alexis Lear is 9 years old and is in fourth grade. She likes reading Dr. Seuss books because they’re easy, quick reads, but her favorite books are The Secret [of the Hidden] Scrolls adventure series by M.J. Thomas. Alexis enjoys reading and visiting the library stacks and play area, but science is her favorite subject. “It’s fun!” she said. She especially likes reading and learning about animals, like horses; she even plans to be a veterinarian when she grows up. The Lears have a lot of animals at home – horses, ponies, goats, chickens, dogs and cats – and Alexis gets a lot of practice in by helping care for them. She is also good at drawing. She explained she received a book about drawing as a gift one year. “I used it and took my time to get started with drawing,” she said.
Lilly Lear, 8, is in third grade. She also likes science – “Chemistry is my favorite,” she said – and is also a big animal lover. In fact, Lilly also wants to be a veterinarian. The girls want to go into practice together, with Alexis specializing in small animals and Lilly specializing in large ones, although they both plan to be able to care for animals of all sizes. Lilly especially loves horses. Her favorite author is Dandi Daley Mackall, who writes the Winnie the Horse Gentler series and other horse-themed titles. She added, however, that her favorite book has to be the Bible. Lilly is artistic, too, but she focuses on painting. “I sometimes paint Alexis’s drawings,” she said. Lilly likes visiting the quieter areas of the library to read.
Layne and Chase Fugate are Harbin Memorial’s Kid Librarians for October. Layne Fugate is one of our younger Kid Librarians, at 6 years old. He is in kindergarten. Layne said he enjoys all of his schoolwork, but he especially loves reading and visiting the library to check out the books and the play area. He doesn’t have a favorite author, but he typically gravitates toward non-fiction titles, especially ones about tractors, trucks or combines. “These are my favorite because we have a tractor and my neighbor has a combine,” he explained. Layne has his own experience with heavy machinery, too. He said he can fix tractors and the lawn tractor, and he’s good at using the toy excavator for digging holes. He plans to continue using those talents throughout his lifetime; Layne wants to be a farmer when he grows up. “I will grow wheat,” he said. “But I can’t do that in my mom’s front yard, so I’ll need a bigger field.”
Chase Fugate is 7 years old and in second grade. He enjoys reading in general and switches between genres. “I like lots of different kinds of books,” he said. Cynthia Rylant is his favorite author, though, especially her book When I Was Young in the Mountains. Chase explained that his mom is also a fan of Cynthia Rylant and reads that book with him, so it’s special in their family. His family is very important to Chase, even when it comes to his future plans – he hopes to follow in his father’s footsteps when he grows up and be a first responder/paramedic or work at Logan Aluminum. Chase is good at building TVs and other tech-oriented skills, but, he admitted, “I think I am good at lots of things to be able to work at different places … maybe even work here [at the library]!” He added, “It’s a good library.” He said he loves attending all the library programs, not to mention the books and the kids’ play area.
Kid Librarian displays are available at their respective library branches each month. They are removed the following month to make space for the next set of chosen Kid Librarians.
New Kid Librarians are chosen for each library branch each month. Applications for November’s Kid Librarians are open now, and an applicant will be selected for each branch in early November.
The Kid Librarian program is designed for children and teens in third through eighth grade, though applications are accepted from all elementary- and middle school-aged child. Applications are available at the front desk of each library branch.
For more information about the Kid Librarian program, contact Muhlenberg County Public Libraries at 270-338-4760 or stop by to fill out an application.
Alexis & Lilly Lear
(display at Central City)
