Fun challenge for young readers

Holiday fun to encourage children to read during the holidays is being offered by Cumbria's public libraries. County libraries are taking part again in the annual Summer Reading Challenge, in which youngsters aged from four to 12 can enjoy reading for fun and collecting goodies such as stickers, folders, certificates a medal or a door hanger on their way through a reading "maze". 

Councillor Tim Heslop, Cumbria County Council Cabinet member with responsibility for culture, said: 

"There's a key educational job to be done in keeping literacy levels up during the summer break, but just as importantly, libraries want to connect children with the right kind of reading for them - reading that's fun, turning them into readers for life. The reading challenge in the long summer holidays offers the chance to link children to the kinds of reading that really inspires them and introduces them to the benefits of library membership. I would also like to thank, Resource, for their generous grant towards funding the pilot reading challenge website." 

Cumbria libraries staff are all set to help children get started after the schools break up on July 18. The theme for this year's reading challenge is the Reading Maze, which offers exciting possibilities for youngsters to take reading "journeys", with chances for adventure and discovery, through a multiplicity of routes. A £75,000 grant from Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries - which manages the People's Network - has funded the creation of a pilot reading challenge website www.readingmaze.org.uk  to demonstrate the wide-reaching possibilities of using the internet in libraries to encourage children's reading, inspire creativity and let them take part in the information society. 

Hidden in the website are eight popular children's writers, Malorie Blackman, Michael Rosen, Debi Gliori, Steve Skidmore and Steve Barlow, Korky Paul, and Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart. All are featured within their own special habitats - their favourite environments for writing, thinking, and reading. Children can explore the author's interactive environments, discovering hotspots that trigger movie clips of authors and illustrators talking about their work, and offering ideas and tips to young users. Each journey is different. 

The Reading Challenge is the nation's biggest reading promotion for children, with more than 650,000 taking part every year, including hundreds in Cumbria. It is not a competition, but a personal challenge providing reading inspiration and incentives to encourage children into libraries and the enjoyment of reading. By visiting the library and reading books they have chosen themselves, children can collect up to six sets of reading maze stickers. They complete the challenge by collecting all the stickers to finish the Reading Maze frieze on their folder, for which they receive a certificate and a medal. 

Children do not need access to the web content to complete the reading challenge. The website is there to add value to the reading experience using the unique capabilities of the internet. Nearly all Cumbria's county libraries offer internet access.