Reading Quest

All children can take part but it’s primarily aimed at 2-12 year olds

Yes, you or your child would need to have a library card to take part. This is so you can keep a record of their progress. We encourage children to use their own library cards for the quest, however parents or guardians can use their own library card if they wish.

Please note that if you have multiple children taking part in the quest, you will need to record their progress on separate library cards.

Joining the library is free, and you can sign up for a library card by:

• visiting any library
• signing up online

All libraries across Suffolk will be taking part. You can sign up for the quest at any of them.

From 19 July children can visit any library in Suffolk to sign up for Reading Quest and get their reading passport. The passport has space for tracking books read, stickers and activities that children and families can complete together.

Children will be encouraged to take part in activities and experiences across the summer rather than read an expected number of books. There are plenty of ideas and challenges to choose from and we hope families will actively engage with reading for pleasure together.

Children can bring their passports back to the library to stamp each completed activity and share what they’ve read. There will also be activities to complete in the library as well as rewards to collect.

Passports will be available from 19 July and like the reading challenge, Reading Quest will run during the summer holidays and will formally finish on 31 August. Children can take part at any time during the school holidays.

Sort of! The Summer Reading Challenge has been run by Suffolk Community Libraries every summer for many years using themes and resources provided by the Reading Agency. From 2024 we’ve decided to do things a bit differently and use a slightly different format which we hope will engage even more children and be something families can enjoy together. It still has the same overall aim – to help children maintain their literacy levels over the summer holidays.

We took on feedback from our pilot year and adapted the programme, keeping the book and reading focus and adding some fun activities to engage children and families.

Children can take part in Reading Quest by borrowing books from our mobile libraries, however unfortunately due to time constraints with the mobile library timetable, we aren’t able to deliver the quest in the same way our static libraries can. As some mobile libraries only visit rural areas once every four weeks, children may have to wait for the next visit before they can borrow more books and log their reading progress and activities.

Children can either:

• Visit a static library to speak to a volunteer about their reading activities, have their progress logged and collect their weekly rewards
• Visit their local mobile library where the staff can track your child’s reading progress on our library system and offer book suggestions whilst the vehicle is at the stop.
• Once your child has completed their Reading Quest, we can arrange to have a medal and certificate sent out to them via Royal Mail.