Day: July 7, 2023

The Summer Reading Challenge, presented by The Reading Agency and funded by Arts Council England, is the UK’s biggest reading for pleasure programme for primary school aged children. Each year the Challenge motivates children to read for pleasure over the summer holidays. Children can sign up for free at a participating library or take part online on the official Summer Reading Challenge website!

From Saturday 8 July children aged 4 – 11 can come and collect their Summer Reading Challenge free fun collector pack, stickers and goodies at a Coventry Library.  At two further visits to libraries through the summer children can collect more stickers to complete their Challenge.  Children don’t need to be big readers to enter the Challenge.

This year, The Reading Agency is partnering with national children’s charity the Youth Sport Trust for Ready, Set, Read!, a sports and games themed Challenge that aims to keep children’s minds and bodies active over the summer break. Find out more here.

I have chosen some of my favourites from this year’s collection.

You’re So Amazing by James & Lucy Catchpole and Karen George is a groundbreaking picture book exploring how we respond to disability.

When people meet Joe, they often treat him as Amazing Joe or Poor Joe. But can’t he just be … Joe?

One-legged Joe is ‘amazing’. He knows this because wherever he goes people always tell him he’s amazing. Amazing for sliding down the slide, for kicking a ball … even walking to get an ice cream, or even just eating an ice cream. Of course, being Amazing Joe is better than being Poor Joe…

Call The Puffins by Cath Howe is a wonderfully warm, witty book to kick off this gorgeous series for younger readers, whether reading at bedtime with a grown up or as an early independent chapter book. Teamwork, resilience and playing to your strengths are all key themes as Muffin gets to grips with life in the colony.

Welcome to the island of Egg where a group of young puffins are training to join a search and rescue team. Meet Muffin who is following in her dad’s footsteps and anxious not to let him down. Meet Tiny whose eyesight is a challenge which won’t stop him for long. And meet Forti who seems so over-confident but is really desperate to impress. Along with their fellow recruits, the puffins must work together to help all the birds on the island.

Johnny Ball Accidental Football Genius by Matt Oldfield is a laugh out loud, relatable tale from kick off to the final whistle.

Johnny Ball LOVES football. He loves reading about it, talking about it, watching it – and he loves playing it too. He’s a good player, but not quite good enough to make the Tissbury Primary School team for the super-huge Under-11s County Cup. But never mind, because their clueless coach, Mr Mann, has a special role for Johnny: ASSISTANT MANAGER! With only Grandpa George’s old scarf, a ‘pocket’ notebook and his brilliant football brain, can Johnny lead the Tissbury Primary team all the way to County Cup glory?

And finally, I was delighted to see Sunny by Jason Reynolds on the list – I am a huge fan of the whole Track Series, which starts with Ghost, about four children from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school running team – a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose and a lot to prove. Not only to each other, but to themselves. Sunny is my favourite of the four books with a rhythmic quality that at times reads like a verse novel.

When Sunny stops running in the middle of a race, Coach asks him what he wants to do instead. His answer is dance, but you can’t be on a track team and dance… can you? With his dad’s expectations weighing down on him, Sunny finally finds a track event that feels like dancing. But as he practices for this new event, can he let go of everything that’s been eating him up inside?

Happy reading!