Summer Reading Challenge Workshops

South Gloucestershire Council Libraries and Arts Service are seeking an exceptional artist to lead a series of one off workshops in all of its thirteen libraries as part of the Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge. The Summer Reading Challenge encourages children to read 6 books over the course of the summer holidays with fun charts and stickers to mark their progress. The theme for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge is ‘Story Lab’.

The Reading Agency’s draft concept statement reads, ‘Step into Story Lab, and you’re off on an imaginative adventure that knows no bounds. The brainchild of Prof Cortex, Story Lab is a five-sided hi-tech HQ that attracts stories from all over the world and sends them spinning throughout the city – and beyond! Here you can read, collect, share, create, transmit and broadcast stories. For the Summer Reading Challenge, Prof Cortex has asked the story Lab kids, Will, Rani, Evie and Lex to recover three lost items to boost the imagination of the Story Lab.’

The SRC has been accepted as a Cultural Olympiad Project. The link to the Olympics this year will be made by setting the Story Lab in a thriving metropolis “hosting“ the Olympic Games. The Olympic Games will be hinted at with illustrative references to stadia and sporting clues, rather than an iconic London skyline.  The three stages of the challenge are divided into bronze, silver and gold with medals awarded at each stage.

This provides opportunities for libraries to use the Story Lab as a starting point to appeal to children’s imagination, and take their reading off into new directions. The Reading Agency gives a brief outline of how the challenge stages may be used by libraries as part of the cultural development.

Stage 1: the bronze coin alludes to the history of storytelling and the wealth of tales that have been passed down through the ages. Encompassing non-fiction, historical fiction, and legends through the ages, it makes a link between our past and present, and diverse cultures from all over the world.

Stage 2: the silver mirror represents the power of the imagination that flows through books and fairytales. Reflecting the true potential of the narrator in fiction, it draws a parallel between the world of fairy tale, fiction, myths, and the real world we inhabit today.    

Stage 3: the gold medal is the ultimate achievement and celebrates the transformative nature of books and stories. Just as reading entertains and amuses us, it also affords us the opportunity to enhance and enrich our lives, to push forward personal boundaries and attain new goals. Like the Olympic ideal, it represents a dream within our reach.

It is envisaged that the Reading Agency may publish a special book featuring material (stories, poems, jokes and illustrations) generated by young people during the SRC.

The SGC library service runs a series of arts and crafts workshops to encourage children to come along to the library and participate in the Challenge. We are looking for an artist to provide an initial workshop in each of our libraries as part of this programme to give a real ‘wow’ factor. The library staff are extremely experienced in running craft activities so we are particularly keen to encourage applications from artists working in other artforms such as performance, writing or storytelling or artists who are able to extend making activities into other areas such as animation or performance. It is anticipated that the workshops would take place at the start of the summer holidays over the weeks commencing 23 July and 30 July. The workshops are drop in sessions lasting up to 2 hours each and, in the past, we have had anything from 20 to 60 children of all ages come in over the course of a session. Library staff will be on hand to support the sessions.

There is a fee of £1600 to cover all artist’s fees, expenses and materials, including a planning session with children’s library staff team, all the workshop sessions and evaluation. If you are interested in taking up the Challenge yourselves, please send a copy of your CV with images of your work where appropriate plus a covering letter showing why you think you would be suitable for this commission and an outline of your workshop proposal to Alison.catlin@southglos.gov.uk by Tuesday 6 March, 2012. (Please note: that the Council’s system will not accept emails larger than 10MB)