WHAT a turn-up for the books! Redditch Library has been crowned a winner in a global reading challenge!
Children and young people at Redditch Library read the most average number of minutes per child for a community group/library in Achievement for All’s global 200 Million Minutes Reading Challenge!
They read for a total 13,438 minutes in just 26 days resulting in a prize of £1,000 in books from challenge partner and learning giant Pearson.
The challenge started on World Book Day on March 7 with nearly half a million children and young people from across the world taking part as they attempted to collectively read for 200 Million Minutes in just 26 days.
Redditch Library children joined fellow children from France, Italy, America, Canada, India and Australia as special reading assemblies, teddy bears picnics, reading events and competitions took place.
In total over 140 million minutes were read, smashing the 100 million minutes read in the 2018 Challenge.
Hannah Smith-Edwards from Redditch Library said: “We are very excited to have been named as one of the winners.
“Many of our regular library users got involved and loved seeing our display showing our library’s total compared to the world wide total.
“We ran Readathons and had children in the junior library snuggling up with the blankets and teddies and working towards receiving a bronze, silver or gold certificate for the amount of minutes they read.”
Lisa Church from Achievement for All said: “We are a charity that champions reading the cause of closing the education gap.
“Reading is quite a major factor in helping social mobility; those who struggle to read struggle to get through their GCSEs and to go on and get a good job.
What Redditch Library has done is a fantastic achievement – well done to everyone.”
