This week Emma paid a visit to South Shields Central Library where she met children taking part in The Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge.
Children aged 4-11 signed up to the Summer Reading Challenge at their local library, then read six books over the summer while earning stickers and rewards. Over 750,000 children from across the UK took part in last year’s challenge.
The theme this year is Creepy House, and children at the library today also had the opportunity to meet some of the animals from the book, including an owl, a snake and a tarantula. The animals were brought along by Martin from Animal Story, who organised the event.
Last month Emma attended a Summer Reading Challenge event in Parliament where young readers chose three books for her to donate to a library in the constituency. Today Emma handed the titles over to the library.
Emma said: “Children don’t just learn in school, evidence shows that when they don’t read books over the summer their reading abilities can start to dip. The Summer Reading Challenge is a great way of keeping children practising, and I was pleased to meet so many enthusiastic readers at the library today.”