11/08/2026
Here are our top tips for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge!
Swipe to find out more ➡️
📚 TIP 1 It’s completely free The Summer Reading Challenge costs absolutely nothing. No sign-up fee, no materials to buy, no catch. Your child joins at the library, borrows books as normal, and earns rewards along the way. Free is free. 🎵
📚 TIP 2 They read whatever they want. No set list. No assigned books. No reading levels to hit. Your child picks whatever they fancy, comics, graphic novels, fact books, picture books, poetry. If the library has it, it counts. That’s the whole point. 🎶
📚 TIP 3 You don’t need to visit every week. Life is busy. Holidays happen. The Summer Reading Challenge runs until mid-September, there’s plenty of time. Come in when you can, borrow a few books, and pick up where you left off. No pressure, no deadlines, no guilt. 📖
📚 TIP 4 Library membership is free too. If your child isn’t already a library member, they can join on the spot when they sign up for the challenge. Takes about five minutes. Completely free. And once they’re a member, the whole collection is theirs, books, audiobooks, eBooks, events. All of it. 🎵
📚 TIP 5 The summer reading dip is real and this fixes it. Research shows children can lose up to two months of reading progress over the summer holidays. Six library books is enough to stop that from happening. That’s it. Six books. Your child’s reading stays strong, their confidence grows, and September feels a lot less like a shock. 🎶
📚 TIP 6 Short visits count. You don’t need to make an afternoon of it. Pop in on the way back from the park. Grab two books, hand back two books and talk to us about them, get a sticker. Ten minutes is enough. The library is right there, use it. 📖
📚 TIP 7 There’s a medal at the end. A real one. Every child who completes six books earns a Summer Reading Challenge medal and a certificate. Many schools celebrate completers in assembly in September. It is a bigger deal to a child than you might expect. 🏅
📚 TIP 8 Let them choose. Seriously. The temptation to steer children toward “improving” b
