Hampshire Now - your County Council magazine

Children Go For Gold in this year's Summer Reading Challenge 2012

Monday, 09 July 2012

This year's Summer Reading Challenge in Hampshire's libraries takes on a virtual Story Lab theme to boost the imagination of children and encourage them to get into reading.

Over the summer holidays, youngsters are being asked to help Professor Cortex find three lost items from her 'Story Lab' by reading six books. The Summer Reading Challenge will run from Saturday 14 July 2012 to Sunday 16 September 2012 in all of Hampshire County Council's libraries and is aimed at 4 to 11 year olds.

Encouraging Young Imaginations

This year, children are invited to step into the 'Story Lab' for a celebration of the imagination by helping virtual characters complete a series of exciting challenges. At each stage, children can collect special stickers, and everyone involved who reads and returns six library books or audio books will receive a certificate and gold medal, just like the Olympic winners at London 2012.

The Summer Reading Challenge is totally free of charge and last year almost 26,000 children took part across Hampshire's libraries. This year the Council hopes to encourage even more children to take part and complete the challenge.

Hampshire County Council's Executive Member for Culture and Recreation, Councillor Keith Chapman, said:

"The Summer Reading Challenge has been running for eleven years in Hampshire and every year, more children are inspired to take part. We really encourage youngsters to get involved in this fun, free challenge, that helps to fire their imagination and keep up their reading skills over the long summer break, before they return to school in the autumn."

Find the location of your local library, and details of how to become a member.

25,990 children took part in Hampshire's Summer Reading Challenge in 2011, of those, 16,422 received medals (a finishing rate that is higher than the national average).

Basingstoke Discovery Centre had the highest number of starters last year (1,521), with Fareham (1,318) and Fleet (1,302) close behind.

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