Over the year young readers have the opportunity expand and develop their reading choices by taking part in reading challenges. The Summer Reading Challenge is held over the summer holiday, and Bloodaxe Book Challenge is held over autumn/winter.
Summer Reading Challenge
The Summer Reading Challenge 2025 launches on Saturday 12 July at Explore York Libraries this summer. Over the summer children can enjoy choosing and reading books of their choice and collect stickers along the way, plus a medal and certificate for all who complete the Challenge by Saturday 13 September.
Thanks to the generous support of our local partners we have some exciting rewards up for grabs!
Following the success of last summer our weekly prize draws are back. Thanks to the support of National Railway Museum, York Maze, Grand Opera House York and Better we have lots of fabulous family tickets on offer this year!
Once children have signed up to the Challenge, they will be automatically entered into the six weekly prize draws held throughout the summer holiday. With four different family tickets up for grabs each week and around 3000 children expected to sign up to the Summer Reading Challenge that isn’t bad odds – but the sooner children sign up the more prize draws they’ll be entered!
Bloodaxe Book Challenge
The Bloodaxe Book Challenge, delivered in collaboration with Jorvik, ran November 2024 through to January 2025
The Bloodaxe author this year was Sophie Kirtley, and her fabulous book The Haunting of Fortune Farm provided the illustrations for the challenge. Thanks to our partners Jorvik, all children who took part received stickers and a bookmark, and all children who read 4 books were invited to a special event with Sophie Kirtley in February half term at York Explore.
