Deep dive with summer reading programme

Summer holidays have begun, and Far North District Libraries are gearing up for their annual summer reading programme. Tamariki, rangatahi and their whānau can start exploring from Monday 5 January, when our libraries reopen in the new year.

The programme continues to explore the hidden kingdoms of Te Hiku o te Ika, which were discovered last year during the extremely popular Ngā kaitiaki o te Ao, Defenders of the World programme.

Titled Rukuhia Ngā Taiao, Kingdom explorers, digs deeper into two of the four kingdoms, Sky and Earth, with challenges and library programmes that everyone can do.

The focus of the programme is to provide children and families a free local activity focused on keeping young minds active during the long school break by providing fun and exciting activities to encourage everyone to keep reading during the holidays.

Our libraries team continues to curate events and programmes like these to help rangatahi in the Far North beat the 'summer slump' usually experienced after taking a long break from school. These events promote safe spaces for children where they can continue keep their young minds active.

Summer reading booklets packed with challenges and library-themed activities can be collected from any local library. Using the booklets, Tamariki follow a chain of leaves, checking off their completed activities, while also adding leaves to six ‘trees’ located around the district.

As challenges are completed, we encourage tamariki to tell our librarians about the adventure they have been doing in our kingdoms. Our librarians will have special stamps to check off each corresponding leaf completed. Each stamped leaf equals an entry into the amazing prize draw, as competitors fill up the trees found in our libraries, they are entered into the draw to win prizes from a total prize pool of $2600. The more challenges completed, the more entries a child receives, increasing their chances of winning.

Adults also have a chance to join the fun this year, with a special colouring competition prepared for adults, giving parents and caregivers the chance to get creative and go into the draw to win a prize of their own.

Extra library events are also planned alongside the programme to offer more chances to stamp more leaves while encouraging rangatahi to get involved with fun and interactive ways to keep learning over summer, while still enjoying their holidays. Keep an eye out on our libraries’ Facebook pages to see when our programmes are running.