Attaching orange, pipe-cleaner hair to her paper plate mask, 7-year-old Lindsey Walker contemplates a stapler. As she struggles with its handle, Miss Lezlee leans in to help.

Lezlee Worthington is a children's services assistant at the East Lansing Public Library and Lindsey was engaged in Mystery Grab Bag Crafts on Tuesday - one of the many programs offered by the library during the summer.

"We cleaned out the closets with this one," said Phyllis Thode, a children's services and reference assistant at the library. "We love the process of art, not the product, so this is more unstructured."

At Mystery Grab Bag Crafts, children ages of 4-8 were given discarded boxes, foam cut-outs, markers, paper and enough glue to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

The activity is more free-form than most of the library's crafts.

"In a lot of the other crafts, Miss Lezlee has something for them to make," said Anjali Bisht, a library volunteer. "It's nice to see what the kids think up."

Bisht, 16, volunteers regularly at the library. She brought her cousins - Anusha, 6, and Nimisha, 5 - to Tuesday's activity.

"They've been wanting to come back since the last time I brought them here, plus I get to help out," she said.

Nimisha spent the afternoon making a decorative fish, which she gave to her cousin.

While their children made rabbit masks and robots, mothers used the time to catch up on reading or to copy recipes from magazines. Some were just as enthusiastic about the crafts as the kids, helping toddlers hats adorned with penguins.

Getting out of the heat was another benefit of Mystery Grab Bag Crafts, which the library will host again July 2.

"They were complaining the whole way here about the air-conditioning not working," said Rosemary Walker, an East Lansing resident. Her granddaughters, Lindsey and Lauren, 4, were visiting from Indiana.

The library's programs aren't all aimed at children. Volunteers from MSU and East Lansing High School tutor children from kindergarten through sixth grade every Tuesday morning.

"If kids read just six books during the summer, they maintain their reading level," Thode said.

The tutoring program allows kids to bring in their own work, or to participate in reading aloud, or flash card games to help maintain their academic skills during the summer, Thode said.

"We really want to let their imaginations soar," she said.