Looking for ways to entertain your children throughout the holidays?  Bedford Borough libraries have come to your rescue with two fantastic summer reading activities: ‘Mythical Maze’ Summer Reading Challenge and‘imagiNation’. Both challenges start Saturday 12th July and finish on Saturday 6th September.

You will need to sign up to the Mythical Maze summer reading challenge at your library.  Children will collect a Mythical Maze fold-out poster and stamp card which have illustrations of weird and wonderful creatures from myths and legends, and they can choose library books to read at home.

Those that take part in the challenge will get their first smelly sticker sheet when they return their library books to the library.  There are six sticker sets to collect and children need to look out for the special code that unlocks areas of the Mythical Maze website! Also new for this year…download the sol.us/mythical app and see the characters in the stickers come to life in 3D!

• Read 6 library books to get a Mythical Maze Certificate
• Read 12 library books to get a neon green Mythical Maze Wristband
• Read 18 library books for a Mythical Maze Medal

For every book read, money will be donated by Wates Giving to Keech Hospice Care.

Check out the Mythical Maze website for games, author news and much more via  www.mythical-maze.org.uk

The next challenge is imagiNation which is new for this year and is a reading and arts challenge for young people aged 11 - 16 years of age.

The aim is to read four library books over the summer holidays.  When participants sign up for imagiNation they will get a log book where they can record how a book has made them feel.  There is no need to write lots –young people can paint a picture, write a song, create a design for a sculpture, create a film script!  This can then be uploaded via the imagiNation blog that has been set up for the project at http://imaginationeast.org.uk

A key part of this project are the workshops available, look out for these at Bedford Central and Kempston Libraries where young people will work with professional artists from Bedford Creative Arts and Full House Theatre.  They will get the chance to explore lots of art forms and have lots of fun!

ImagiNation is a partnership project between the libraries of Bedford Borough, Cambridgeshire, Central Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Luton, Norfolk, Peterborough, Southend and Thurrock. The ImagiNation project is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Don’t miss your chance to be part of this exciting project!   

For more information on summer reading activities call Sue Shead, at Bedford Central Library, on 01234718178.