Aberdeen City Libraries is celebrating the success of its annual reading challenge, which saw more than 800 children read close to 3,000 books over the summer holidays.
The Aberdeen Reads initiative was established in 2019 to keep children engaged and reading throughout the summer holidays. It is an essential activity for maintaining and developing literacy skills, which can have a positive impact on attainment levels. It has also been an important tool in the promotion of reading for pleasure as an effective way of boosting mental health.
The challenge ran from Saturday 22 June until Saturday 24 August, and resulted in 807 library users registering to take part; borrow and read 2,930 books. This marked a 20% increase in registered users, and a 40% increase in the total number of books read, compared to last year’s initiative. In addition, over 350 children took part in free summer activities across the community libraries.
Councillor Martin Greig, Convener of the Education and Children’s Services Committee, said: “It's great to see the positive impact of this year's Aberdeen Reads initiative. Many more young readers have been encouraged to visit city libraries over the summer period. Over five hundred under sixteens have now joined the library thanks to this project. It is important to support reading and the love of books, especially for young people."
Councillor Jessica Mennie, Vice-Convener, of the Education and Children’s Services Committee, said: “The annual summer reading challenge was created to encourage children and young people to read and develop a joy of reading during the school holidays. It’s clear from the pupils wanting to be Reading Champions and the number of young people that have taken part in this summer’s challenge that the initiative is more popular than ever.”
The theme of this year’s challenge saw the library service’s mascot Library Bear use a time machine fuelled by the books that were borrowed, read and logged over the Summer, to travel to time periods including Ancient Egypt, Victorian Aberdeen and the Jurassic Era.
Children and young people have played a key role in the planning and development of library services and the Aberdeen Reads Challenge. Since the beginning of the year, library staff have welcomed significant engagement from children and young people. This included volunteering to be trained as Reading Champions to promote the reading challenge to their peers, researching and suggesting time periods for Library Bear to visit, and the design of the promotional banner, which was created by a pupil from Holy Family RC School.