Route 66 Turns 100, and Pasadena’s Libraries Are Hitting the Road

The highway that carried Dust Bowl families west and gave Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard its place on the American roadmap turns 100 this year. The Pasadena Public Library is marking the centennial the way it has marked every summer since 1921: with books, but this time also with road signs, classic cars and puppet shows in Spanish.

The library’s 2026 Summer Reading Program, “On the Road to Reading,” launches June 13 and runs through August 1 across all 10 branches, according to the library’s Off the Shelf newsletter. The seven-week program structures its events as 15 numbered “road stops” hosted at branches and civic landmarks across the city, turning the library system into a Route 66 itinerary that families can follow all summer.

Two stops reach beyond the branch walls. On June 14, families are invited to “Happy Birthday Pasadena” at the Pasadena Museum of History, 470 West Walnut Street, a free celebration of four milestones converging in 2026: the city’s 140th birthday, Colorado Boulevard’s 150th anniversary, Route 66’s centennial and the 250th anniversary of the United States. On June 28, Road Stop No. 9 takes participants to Pasadena City Hall’s Centennial Square for the finish line ceremony of the Hemmings Great Race, a nine-day, more-than-2,300-mile classic car rally retracing Route 66 from Springfield, Ill., to Pasadena with 120 antique automobiles. The race is presented by Coker Tire.

The events themselves are pitched at children ages 3 to 12 and their families. Road Stop No. 5, at Hill Avenue Branch Library on June 20, is a Harry Potter–themed LEGO engineering workshop. Road Stop No. 12, at Santa Catalina Branch Library on July 18, features a bilingual Spanish-English puppet show by Brillantina Puppet Theater. Road Stop No. 15, at Linda Vista Branch Library on July 30, brings Mad Science of Los Angeles for an air-pressure demonstration complete with an indoor hovercraft.

The program is free. Participants can register at any branch or online at Pasadena.Beanstack.com, complete activities and earn prizes at reading milestones, according to the library newsletter. Families should note that Hastings Branch Library, 3325 East Orange Grove Boulevard, is closed for a construction project through June 30 and will reopen July 1; some programs originally scheduled there have been moved to other branches.

For the sixth year, the library is also operating Lunch at the Library, a federally supported program that provides free meals to children and teens ages 0 to 18 at Jefferson Branch Library, 1500 East Villa Street, and Villa Parke Branch Library, 363 East Villa Street, second floor. Lunch runs Monday through Friday, June 8 through August 14, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Activities including STEM projects, art, crafts, music lessons, homestead projects, nutrition and sensory play accompany the meals, and family health and wellness services are offered on-site, according to the newsletter. The program is a project of the California State Library, with meals funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program.

Summer reading itself is deeply rooted in Pasadena. The library’s newsletter notes that the tradition dates to 1921, when the library created the Vacation Reading Club. Children who joined were given reading lists and, after finishing 10 books, delivered brief oral reports to the librarian.

“Civic education for young adults is more important than ever,” Tim McDonald, director of the Pasadena Public Library, said in the newsletter, discussing a separate $15,000 grant the library received from the Urban Libraries Council for young-adult civic engagement. “We have a talented, intelligent, and motivated population of young people in Pasadena who are ready to contribute to their community, but many feel discouraged by deep political division, misinformation and diminished trust in government. We seek to confront these challenges by fostering civic knowledge, skills and dispositions that support young people’s participation in a healthy democracy.”

The summer program is sponsored by The Friends of the Pasadena Public Library. For questions, families can contact the Youth Services Division at (626) 744-8046 or Lib_YouthSVC@cityofpasadena.net. More information is available at CityOfPasadena.libguides.com/summer-reading, and a full events calendar is at CityOfPasadena.net/Library/Calendar.

One hundred years after the first motorists followed Route 66 through Pasadena, the road still runs through Colorado Boulevard. This summer, it also runs through the stacks.