Meet Our 2026 Summer Learning Family

Meet the Bento/Hamre/Wilders! Featured throughout the 2026 Summer Learning guide, they are a multigenerational family who have made Summer Learning a cherished family tradition for more than ten years, growing their participation each year by recruiting more family members to join in, and reaching milestones together.

"We love the library," says Stephanie, the mother of Jessica, who is the mother of Jaxon, who is the brother of William, Max, and Noah. Jaxon, the oldest of Stephanie's grandchildren living in Kitsap, was only in kindergarten when she decided to challenge him and her daughter, Jessica, to take on the 100-hour reading challenge together.

As new family members joined them, each year felt more fun than the last. After Jessica and David married, their family grew, and Noah, the youngest, soon joined their Summer Learning crew, along with his grandfather, John, Stephanie's husband. John loves audiobooks, and once he realized that listening is reading, they began listening to more and more audiobooks in the summer. "After all, every kind of reading counts!" says Stephanie. At the time, this meant checking out books on CD from the Library, but now they use Libby, the Library's audiobook and ebook app.

Once Noah was old enough to be interested, the whole family helped him keep track of the hours they read aloud to him, and these days it's often him reading out loud to the family, including on the morning they drove to the Kingston branch to take photos for this year's Summer Learning guide.

Although it's not the closest branch to Jaxon, William, Max, and Noah, the grandchildren consider the Kingston branch their home library. "Jaxon, when he was little, called this 'my library,'" says Stephanie. Whenever the kids visited their grandparents, he would ask, "Can we go to my library?"

Now, Summer Learning events and challenges have become a core part of the Bento/Hamre/Wilder Family summers. "We've seen the magician [Jeff Evans] four or five times," says Jessica. "Noah got to be a part of his show up in Hansville last summer!"

At the end of each summer, the whole family gets together in the shirts they earned through long reading days, and they take a family photo. Seen side by side, it's clear that as the family has grown up and changed, their love of reading has been constant. Summer 2026 will be the family's 11th year participating, and they're already planning to check out a backyard stargazing kit to enjoy together, in addition to tackling their personal reading goals.

Every year, one or two families in Kitsap graciously agree to become the Library's Summer Learning "spokesfamily." This volunteer family participates in a themed photoshoot, modeling the year's T-shirt design while showcasing various items from the Library's collection for the Summer Learning guide, which is distributed across the county at schools, branches, and community events.

Want to be the next "spokesfamily" of Summer Learning? Be sure to send us a Summer Learning Field Note and let us know!

Learn more about Summer Learning and this year's challenges and events at KRL.org/Summer.