Bad Manners and Brimstone

"Fair" is hugely overrated.

Go with the plan that gets the kids to read the most books. That's the goal. Stick with it.

This part really bugs me:

And it is very annoying when prizes for other age groups are going to be drawn locally.  Only the teens and adults are getting this kind of treatment.

The library system should be running all the programs similarly.

I really like the idea of smaller prizes per number of books read. This is how the library used to do it when my kids were young. Having a sure reward based on the number of books you read is a whole lot better than some pie in the sky prize you might win if you're super lucky. Why bother?

And yes, solicit local businesses for donations. They don't have to be super expensive. Then you splash the logos of the businesses who donate on the flyer or website in return for them agreeing to supply the prize to all the kids who meet the goal(s).

I'd still say that per branch is the best way to go, considering the kids in the underprivileged areas are the ones who need the most encouragement to read, and therefore, should be incentivized more aggressively.

If the librarians can tell those kids with certainty that someone from their branch, i.e., their neighborhood, is guaranteed to win a prize, that sounds a whole lot better than being up against all the kids in the city. By the time they're teenagers, these underprivileged kids already have it figured out that life isn't fair and is skewed against them. No wonder so many lost interest when there was only one big prize.