Libraries - events

Will you be ready for the Summer Reading Challenge?

This year's Summer Reading Challenge for children — "Team Read" — starts on 1 July  2008. It is free to join: just call in at your local library and pick up your Team Read pack. Read as many books as you want over the summer but remember to let us know what you have been reading by filling in the details in your pack as you go along. 

• When you have read your first two books, fill in the details and bring your pack into the library and we will give you your Bronze Prize.
• When you have read your next two books, fill in the details and bring your pack into the library and we will give you your Silver Prize.
• When you have read your next two books, fill in the details and bring your pack into the library and we will give you your Gold Medal.
• Everybody who completes the Summer Reading Challenge will get a certificate.

The Team Read web site

We launched this year's Summer Reading Challenge with two library sessions for schools with special guest performers:

• Tom Palmer at the Wheatsheaf Library on Tuesday 17 June; and
• Craig Bradley at Junction Community Library on Wednesday 18 June.

All primary schools in the Borough were invited to send four Year 5 children to the events as "ambassadors." They enjoyed quizzes or a performance poetry session and were each given a Team Read pack to show to the rest of the school.

Summer fun!

Rhythm & Rhyme for the under fours

Paul Guy’s Magic Show (for children over four)

Bug Box (for children over four)

Crafty holidays!

As an experiment we had craft and activity tables in all our libraries throughout last summer's school holidays. These proved to be so popular that we have decided to do this every school holiday, with a different theme each week.

Rochdale Readers

The children's book club, Rochdale Readers, continues to add new members. They have now set up a blog to celebrate the National Year of Reading, including thoughts and poems on each month's theme.

Rochdale Readers meet once a month at the Wheatsheaf Library and welcomes anyone between the ages of five and eleven.

Rochdale Readers blog site

The Big Listen

The Big Listen Week began on Monday 19 November 2007. The theme this year was health. The organisers wanted to know your views on healthy living. Survey forms were circulated around our libraries and we had an online survey on this page. Here are the results:

We are setting up a Featured Collection of stock on a healthy-living theme aimed at teenagers and young adults. Which of the following subject areas would you think would be the most important and useful for us to include in this collection?

• Depression and anxiety 25%
• Sex and relationships 20.8%
• Substance abuse 20.8%
• Alternative health 8.3%
• Coping with bullying 8.3%
• Diet and healthy eating 8.3%
• Coping with allergies 4.2%
• Exercise and activity 4.2%

Thanks to this response we are setting up a couple of these collections covering the most requested topics.

We also added some items on these topics to the new  featured collections we set up earlier this year (each of these collections have a variety of fiction and non-fiction books aimed at particular age groups).

Healthy living for under-fives

Our under fives events included stories and activities on healthy living themes.

Did you know that our regular Storytimes and Rhythm and Rhyme sessions promote children's health and well-being through social interaction and developing listening and co-ordination skills?

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