Summer Reading Challenges

Once you have read at least one book try some of the following challenges. Remember that you don’t have to do them all so pick ones that you think you can get your teeth stuck into.

1) Summarise the book that you have read in no more than one hundred words.

This might seem like a lot at first but it is actually very difficult to write a detailed plot summary in one hundred words. It might take a bit of editing and rewriting to get it to fit.

 2) Pick one character that is described in some detail within your book. Draw a picture of what he/she/it looks like and add in some labels.

It doesn’t matter if you aren’t a brilliant artist because we only want to see if you can pick out details from a book. Your labels can be taken directly from the book and if they are then put them in quotation marks like this... “He had black, coarse hair and a wicked smile.”

 3) Imagine that you are writing one of those bookshop review cards that you see stuck to the shelves. Write down in no more than fifty words why someone else should read this book.

4) On one A4 sheet of paper create a time line or flow chart to show the main events in the story. You can use a computer to do this if you think it will be clearer.

5) Design your own front cover for the book that you have read. Remember that the colours used, the picture and font of the title are the first thing that a reader normally sees. Make carefully choices about what you will put on the cover to tell the reader something about the book.

6) Try and write a blurb (the description which goes on the back of a book or on the inside front cover) which gives some of the basic information about the story and persuades people to read it.

You can use the blurb which is already on the book to help you with this or read some blurbs from other books to give you some more ideas.

If you want to look at some more activities and tasks then visit the Summer Reading Challenge Website.

www.readingagency.org.uk/children/summer-reading-challenge