Hampshire County Council’s Libraries are encouraging all four to eleven-year-olds to sign up to the 2017 Summer Reading Challenge which begins this month.
Run by the Reading Agency, the free activity has an Animal Agent theme this year. The scheme encourages Hampshire children to read any six books of their choice between 15 July and 17 September.
The County Council’s Executive Member for Culture, Recreation and Countryside, Councillor Andrew Gibson, said:
This year’s Animal Agent theme has a strong universal appeal to Hampshire’s young readers as it taps into the well loved whodunnit genre. It will inspire children of all reading abilities as the challenge progresses in fun and interactive ways.
Last year, more than 15,500 children completed the challenge over nine weeks so we’re encouraging all primary school children to sign up at their local library from 15 July so we can beat that number this year . Each reader will be helped throughout the challenge by library staff and volunteers in branch, supporting their progress and helping them discover new clues that will help them solve the cryptic case as they move towards their six-book target.
When children sign up to the challenge, they’ll receive stickers and temporary Animal Agent inspired tattoos along with suggested booklists for the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 age groups. There will also be a variety of themed printed and online activities including Bernice the Bear as the boss of the highly skilled crime capers, and Bart the Bloodhound with a strong track record of sniffing out clues.
Hampshire Libraries will be hosting a mixture of animal themed activities and events in celebration of this year’s Summer Reading Challenge – including animal handling workshops – so keep an eye on the events pages. Photos of participants progressing through the Summer Reading Challenge can be tweeted @hantslibraries or posted to Hampshire Library Service’s Facebook page.