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Exactly a week ago, I was privileged to launch the Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge Scotland (I needed to take a deep breath every time I said that!) in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. In case the title doesn’t make it clear, it’s the libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge, in Scotland, sponsored by Tesco Bank. I was also privileged to also launch the local Summer Reading Challenge in Dundee two days later.
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| Launching the Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge Scotland |
This year’s theme is Mythical Maze. And there couldn’t be a better theme for me – I write collections of myths and legends, I write contemporary adventures inspired by old myths, and one of my books even has a Maze in the title.
So that’s probably why I was asked to launch this year’s theme and challenge in Scotland. (And yes, I know it seems a bit early to all of you south of the border, but we grab summer earlier up here in Scotland, so the schools are already out and the libraries are already challenging kids to read books during the holidays.)
The launches were all positive and smiley. I met kids who had done previous challenges and were keen to do it again (which was great) and I met kids who had never done it before but were keen to give it a go it this year (which was even better.) So I had hoped to post a really cheerful blog for you all about summer and reading, with these wonderful illustrations by Sarah MacIntyre.
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| With lovely librarian Ruth in Dundee, and a dragon behind us. |
But when I posted pictures of me with posters and books and dragons and kids online last week, someone who had been involved in a campaign that I supported to keep their local library open, a campaign that sadly failed, contacted me to say, this is lovely, Lari, but what about the kids who don’t have a local library any more?
And I didn’t have an answer. Sad face emoticons don’t really do it.
The Summer Reading Challenge brightens up and invigorates libraries all over the country and allows them to run fun family-focussed events. The different themes every year make reading relevant and exciting to lots of different children. Kids get involved, families get involved, authors get involved. It’s a brilliant scheme. Well done the Reading Agency for organising it, and Tesco Bank for supporting it in Scotland. But it can’t reach every child, because not every child has access to a library.
And perhaps that’s the real challenge for all of us.
I had intended to write a really cheerful summery sunny post for all you Awfully Big Blog fans, but the shadow over it is that even the best things we do with books can’t and don’t reach everyone. Not until we make sure every single child has access to a library.
So clearly my challenge is to get away from that dragon breathing down my neck and take up my sword again on the subject of library closures.
In the meantime, have a fun summer, losing yourself in mazes and finding new myths!
(Lari is now away polishing her sword…)
Lari Don is an occasional library campaigner, and also the award-winning author of 21 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers.
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0 Comments on The real Summer Reading Challenge? Lari Don as of 6/30/2014 3:09:00 AM
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It is a lovely idea. Libraries can exist in the most unlikely places. There is one in a canoe in Africa!
I too think such places make atttractive and interesting "homes" for local book sharing - and all praise to the people who run them. It's a nice post.
BUT I also don't think that such newsworthy venues can offer the range of books or book-ordering facilities or even the study space ("Come out, Mary-Jane! Your three minutes is up!Do not press Button B.") that anyone doing serious study or research needs.
It's all too easy to quote such sites as the answer to the library cuts. Imo they are a pretty add-on to a badly-hacked core.
I'm with Panny. This is sweet and lovely, and a great idea. But 'as libraries close' if this is all we're left with, it is pitiful.
or even PENNY. Sorry!
I'm all for libraries and have spent many hours in them and I feel even losing one is a crime. But if using an old phone box in this way can convert one person into reading books who would never dream of walking into a library then it's served it's purpose well.
Lynne, like you, I'm all for converting people into readers but recently I seem to have seen too many "media puffs" about such small photogenic libraries put out by councils and such bodies as cute smokescreens for the cuts that that are going on. Our local paper had an article about a village pub that now acts as a library, replacing the mobile library that used to come to the village. Great "story" - and a good way of encouraging people into the pub too. But, in my view, without an active and well-staffed library service, there's a point when volunteer-led library initiatives will fade. Volunteers can be fantastic, but they can also be a picky lot about what and when they do things because the work is not as central to their lives. This is without touching on the "range of book stock" issues.
It is a pretty library!
Over time I think the stock would go down some as some wouldn't put books back, but a lot of readers are good people. And if some occasionally restocked with used books, it could be a real winner.
Lynne, I love this! What a cute - and civilised - idea!
Peculiarly British or oddly human? Vandalised phone box rescues vandalised library. The spirits of Margaret Rutherford and Alec Guinness deposit a book.
Great story.
I agree that this is a sweet idea. But I also agree with those who have said that it's no replacement for the real thing - not least because of this sort of thing.
Yes we need libraries, but I see no problem with having this as well - I think it's a great idea.