Young readers in the library’s Story Time program got a sweet treat this week to close out another year for the program.

The pre-school age children attending Story Time at the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library on Tuesday morning and this morning got the opportunity to try out their creative skills by building their own gingerbread houses using edible ingredients.

The final Story Time for 2016 was a little different than the traditional Story Time sessions. There was no musical parade to kick off the day, though the children did listen to Christmas music. Also, Children’s Librarian Ashlee Williams said no story was read to the children in order to allow them plenty of time to decorate their gingerbread houses. This is the 10th year Story Time has incorporated building a gingerbread house into the special Christmas programs.

Each child received a work tray containing the “frame” for their gingerbread house — an empty milk carton.

“Valley Forge Elementary School’s cafeteria collected these for us,” Williams said, adding the school collects and cleans the cartons for the program each year.

As Williams explained to the children how to build their houses, the young readers helped her by counting the materials they would need — four squares for the walls and two rectangles to make the roof.

The walls and roof were constructed from graham crackers and the young readers used icing to attach them to the house frame. The children then had their choice of several different items to decorate their houses — including marshmallows, cereal, candies, and pretzels.

In addition to thanking Valley Forge Elementary for collecting the milk cartons, Williams thanked Julie Name, with the Carter County school system, and local homeschool student Julia Calhoun for volunteering to assist the young readers with their holiday project.

After today’s session, the Story Time program will take a two-week break due to the Christmas and New Years holidays.

Story Time for pre-school aged children will resume once again on the second Tuesday and Wednesday of January 2017 — Jan. 10 & 11 — at the normal scheduled time of 10:30 a.m.

For more information on the library or the Story Time program, contact the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library at (423) 547-6360.