Summer Reading Adventure

The Summer Reading Adventure is Complete!

Joseph Robinson

Greetings adventurers of great renown. The 2022-2023 Summer Reading Adventure has now finished! As your local librarians, we have been absolutely delighted to see all your achievements and creativity on display! Congratulations to all tamariki & whānau who took part.

Here are some of the numbers:

  • You read 20221 books over December and January — that’s 326 books a day, or a book every 4 and a half minutes!
  • You wrote, drew, or filmed 6447 book reviews. Many of you loved using emojis to tell us about the books you read!
  • You completed 3505 quests, from exploring and mapping the land to building forts, conducting science experiments to creating beautiful and original works of art.
  • You’ve collected 1259 prizes, including badges, books, pens, pencils and notebooks, vouchers from our wonderful friends at Ben & Jerry’s and Unity Books, and other goodies!

So many of you have picked up prizes already. From today, you can still come in to pick up prizes, but only while stocks last as we’re starting to run out of books and other goodies! Check out a small selection of some of our favourite examples of the awesome activities you did!

Protector of the Cake

Inspired by Ruth Paul’s wonderful picture book, Lion Guards The Cake we asked young people to design their dream cake, or bake it with the help of an adult!

Theo cake

Theo designed and baked this incredible dream cake!


Protector of the Cake: Deon

Deon’s basketball championship dream cake!


Reuben's cake

Reuben’s three-dimensional treat!


A Moveable Castle

Inspired by the classic kids’ novel, Howl’s Moving Castle written by Diana Wynne Jones, we challenged young people to construct a blanket fort & have a whānau picnic!

SuperJesse peaks out of a massive fort!

SuperJesse peaks out of a massive fort!


Savannah's cosy fort!

Savannah’s cosy fort!


Bree's whānau fort!

Bree’s whānau fort!


Every Leaf a Masterpiece

Drawing on the name of Ben Okri’s kids’ book, Every Leaf a Hallelujah, we asked kids to head outside and collect some leaves, flowers, or petals from the ground and use them to make collages and artworks!

Maeve's beautiful design

Maeve’s beautiful design!


Gabriel's pleasingly composed botanical piece!

Gabriel’s pleasingly composed botanical piece!


Josh's leafy triptych

Josh’s leafy triptych


That’s us for now, we’re already looking forward to the next reading adventure!

The Summer Reading Adventure for Kids: Grand Prizes Announcement!

Joseph Robinson

Read books, explore the city, win prizes!

The Summer Reading Adventure for Kids runs from 1 December 2022 – 31 January 2023 for children aged 5-13. Read books; write, draw or film reviews; and complete quests to earn all kinds of awesome goodies — and you’ll still be home in time for tea! Adults and teens can also take part in their own Summer Reading Adventures — read our News blog for all the info.

Today, we’re stoked to introduce our grand prizes for kids in the 22/23 adventure!

Into the wild prizeGrand Prize Option 1: Into the Wild

This prize pack contains:
– A family pass to Zealandia
– 4x individual passes to Wellington Zoo
– A NeoBear AR Globe
– A selection of locally-made goodies, including chocolate! 

Wellington City Libraries is grateful to Zealandia, Wellington Zoo and OfficeMax for their generous sponsorship of this prize. 

Science and Wonder

Grand Prize Option 2: Science and Wonder 

This prize pack contains:
– A family pass to the Space Place
– A NeoBear AR Globe
– A Merge Cube holographic cube
– A selection of locally-made goodies, including chocolate! 

Wellington City Libraries is grateful to Experience Wellington, The Space Place, and OfficeMax for their generous sponsorship of this prize. 


Art Through Technology

Grand Prize Option 3: Art through Technology 

This prize pack contains:
– A selection of high-quality artistic stationery
– A Merge Cube holographic cube
– A selection of locally-made goodies, including chocolate! 

Wellington City Libraries is grateful to OfficeMax for their generous sponsorship of this prize. 


Movies and More

Grand Prize Option 4: Books, Movies and More 

This prize pack contains:
– Free movie vouchers for Light House Cinemas in Wellington – enough for the whole family
– A Unity Books voucher to the value of $50
– A selection of locally-made goodies, including chocolate! 

Wellington City Libraries is grateful to Light House Cuba for their generous sponsorship of this prize. 


Pick up the Adventurer’s Guide from your local library and visit our Summer Reading Adventure website to pre-register and start logging your reading and adventures today.

Read on to find out more!

Continue reading →

The Summer Reading Adventure for Kids: A Sneak Preview

Stephen Clothier

Read books, explore the city, win prizes!

The Summer Reading Adventure for Kids runs from 1 December 2022 – 31 January 2023 for children aged 5-13. Read books; write, draw or film reviews; and complete quests to earn all kinds of awesome goodies — and you’ll still be home in time for tea! Adults and teens can also take part in their own Summer Reading Adventures — read our News blog for all the info.

Pick up the Adventurer’s Guide from your local library and visit our Summer Reading Adventure website to pre-register and start logging your reading and adventures today.

Read on to find out more!

Continue reading →

Announcing the Summer Reading Adventure 2021-22 Champions!

Stephen Clothier

The day is finally here! You’ve waited very patiently, and now it’s time for us to announce the Grand Prize Winners of the 2021-22 Summer Reading Adventure.

Of course, everyone who took part is a winner in some way — whether you won badges, books, stationery, vouchers, or just the eternal respect and admiration of your peers, your fearless ventures into the Land of Literature have not gone unrewarded. In fact, during the Summer Reading Adventure, our librarians gave out 3,578 prizes to intrepid word explorers across our fair city.

Some of these prizes came along with another, hidden prize — the opportunity to put your name in the hat to win one of the four Grand Prizes. When all was said and done, we had nearly 10,000 names in the four Grand Prize hats. Out of those honourable 10,000, the following lucky four names were drawn:

Grand Prize #1 — Into the Wild

Winner: Charlotte, age 8, from Redwood School and Tawa Library

Prizes:

  • 1x Family Pass to Zealandia
  • 1x Family Pass to Wellington Zoo
  • Assorted goodies, including books and chocolate!

Grand Prize #2 — Science and Wonder

Winner: Sophia, age 6, from Sacred Heart Cathedral School and Johnsonville Library

Prizes:

  • 1x Family Pass to the Space Place
  • 1x Capital E voucher
  • Assorted goodies, including books and chocolate!

Grand Prize #3 — Artistic Aspirations

Winner: Felix, age 9, from Seatoun School and Miramar Library

Prizes:

  • 1x Family Pass to Hilma af Klimt: The Secret Paintings at the City Gallery
  • A selection of high-quality artistic stationery from Gordon Harris
  • Assorted goodies, including books and chocolate

Grand Prize #4 — Books, Movies and More

Winner: Pia, age 10, from Wa Ora Montessori School and Karori Library

Prizes:

  • 5x tickets to Light House Cinemas
  • $50 Unity Books voucher
  • Assorted goodies, including books and chocolate

Massive congratulations to all our winners!

But most of all, congratulations to everyone who took part! As we’ve noted before, you have positively blown our socks off and we couldn’t be prouder of the kids of Wellington and your incredible reading prowess. See you for the next Adventure!

Sophia, age 6, proudly holding her bag full of prizes in front of the main desk at Johnsonville Library

Sophia from Sacred Heart Cathedral School and Johnsonville Library

Charlotte, age 8, standing with a broad smile and a bag full of prizes in front of a row of colourful shelves containing children's books.

Charlotte from Redwood School and Tawa Library


Pia, age 10, standing next to a staff member at Karori Library, proudly holding her bag full of prizes

Pia from Wa Ora Montessori School and Karori Library

The Summer Reading Adventure is Finished!

Stephen Clothier

Well, folks, here we are. The Summer Reading Adventure is finally over! You’ve absolutely blown us away with what you’ve achieved — congratulations to everyone who took part. Here are some of the numbers:

  • You read 16,863 books over December and January — that’s 527 books a day, or a book every 5 minutes!
  • You wrote, drew, or filmed 5,044 book reviews. Many of you loved using emojis to tell us about the books you read!
  • You completed 2,625 quests, from exploring and mapping the land to building forts, conducting science experiments to creating beautiful and original works of art.
  • You earned 3,536 prizes, including badges, books, pens, pencils and notebooks, vouchers from our wonderful friends at Ben & Jerry’s and Unity Books, and other goodies!

So many of you have picked up prizes already. From today, you can still come in to pick up prizes, but only while stocks last as we’re starting to run out of books and other goodies! Check out some of our 3,000+ prizewinners below:

Adelaide from Karori Library

Marcy from Karori Library


Harper from Khandallah Library

Kenta from Tawa Library


Mikio from Tawa Library

Senri from Tawa Library


Charlie and William from Te Awe Library


Even though the Summer Reading Adventure is officially over, that doesn’t mean that your reading journey needs to end. You can still use our Beanstack website to log your reading, get personalised book recommendations, write or draw reviews, and earn digital achievements. Awesome stuff!

Keep your eyes peeled for more announcements about the Summer Reading Adventure, including our Grand Prize Winners — your name may just be on that list! But for now, we’re going to take a quick break, wipe the sweat from our brow, and start getting ready for the next adventure. See you there!

Summer Reading Tips: The Community Reading Goal

Stephen Clothier

Kia ora! The Summer Reading Adventure is now in full swing, and hundreds of you have already started logging your reading, writing or drawing book reviews, and completing quests in the name of honour and glory. Hurrah!

You might have noticed that on the Summer Reading Adventure website, if you scroll down just a little bit, you’ll see a live counter that looks a little like this:

A live ticker on the Summer Reading Adventure website, with a progress bar that is 20% full and text saying "It's dangerous to go alone! Let's work together to reach this community reading goal."

Did you catch the reference to The Legend of Zelda games? There are classic gaming references hidden everywhere on the Summer Reading Adventure website — can you find them all?

This counter tells us how many books the kids of Wellington have read so far on their Summer Reading Adventures. We have set a goal for us to read 5,000 books together before the 31st of January — and yes, you read that correctly, we’ve already read over 1,000 books! After just one week! Ka pai tō mahi, that is amazing!

What happens when we reach our Community Reading Goal? Well, the text on the left will change, for one thing. So that’s cute. But as for other effects, you’ll just have to wait and see!

The Summer Reading Adventure starts today — 1 December!

Stephen Clothier 4 Comments

Read books, explore the city, win prizes!

The Summer Reading Adventure runs from 1 December 2021 – 31 January 2022 for children aged 5-13. Read books; write, draw or film reviews; and complete quests to earn all kinds of awesome goodies — and you’ll still be home in time for tea!

Summer Reading Adventure website link - 1 December to 31 January

Pick up the Adventurer’s Guide from your local library and visit our Summer Reading Adventure website to register and start logging your reading and adventures today.

Read on to find out more!

Continue reading →

The Summer Reading Adventure is Coming!

Stephen Clothier 2 Comments

Hold on to your hats, the Summer Reading Adventure is almost here! From 1 December 2021 – 31 January 2022, we’re inviting you on an adventure — an adventure that will take you from the safety and comfort of your bedroom, to locations around the city, into your back yard, down to the local library, into the pages of more than a few books, and back home again in time for tea.

Along the way, you’ll be reading books, drawing pictures and maps, taking videos, completing challenges, getting out into nature, and maybe fighting off the odd monster or two — all in the name of seeing who shall have the honour of being crowned Supreme Champion of Words, Books and Deeds. You’ll also be earning all kinds of awesome prizes for your efforts, from collectible badges to ice-cream vouchers, books, family experiences and much more!

We know many of you have taken part in the Summer Reading Challenge before, so we’re keeping all the features you know and love — like the reading log and book reviews — and also bringing in a whole load of new activities and features, including a special mobile app you can use to log your progress through the Summer Reading Adventure, keep up with what your friends are doing, and keep tabs on your reading no matter where you are.

We’ll soon be unveiling the brand new Summer Reading Adventure website and guide for new adventurers, so keep your eyes out on our website and on social media for more information leading up to the 1st of December!

Until then, keep those reading eyes sharp — you’ll be needing ’em!