Published: Friday, 17th October 2025
Medway Libraries were delighted to host a prize winners celebration event for all the winners of the Summer Reading Challenge on Friday, 10 October at Chatham Library.
There were speeches by the Cllr Vince Maple, Leader of Medway Council and Cllr Trevor Clarke, the Mayor of Medway, as well as author and poet A F Harrold.
The Summer Reading Challenge Library of the Year award went to Hoo Library, with Lordswood, Rainham, Strood, and Twydall libraries highly commended. Hoo Library won thanks to their dragon community art project and dragon egg progress trackers, which encouraged children and families to return throughout the summer.
The Internal Partnerships award went to Child-Friendly Medway for promoting the Summer Reading Challenge and signposting their event.
The External Partnerships award was given to Applause Rural Touring for co-funding and co-organising 16 events in our libraries this summer. Our families were able to attend three shows, Wishing Tree, Creation Walk, and Toadstools and Mushrooms at various libraries, bringing high-quality free cultural events to our communities.
The Young Volunteer of the Year award was given to Anabel Johns and the School Shield was awarded to Hempstead Infant School.
The author visit prize draw was won by Swingate Primary and St Mary’s Catholic Primary School and both schools will receive an author visit by A F Harrold.
Cllr Vince Maple, Leader of Medway Council said: “I was absolutely delighted to meet all winners of the Summer Reading Challenge. The response across the whole of Medway was amazing with so many children, young people and adults taking part. It was lovely to speak to the prize winners and hear about the books they enjoyed over the summer. At a time where other communities are sadly seeing a drop in participation it’s great that Medway is bucking the trend by big increases in those taking part – it makes me proud to be Medway.”
The Summer Reading Challenge is a national scheme from The Reading Agency which looks to keep children engaged with books and maintain literacy skills over the summer holidays. This year’s theme was Story Garden, which celebrated the connection between storytelling and nature, and encouraged children to explore the links between reading and the great outdoors.
This year’s Summer Reading Challenge is officially Medway’s best performance ever! Over the summer break 3,574 children took part in the challenge with 2,521 finishing the full 6 book challenge – meaning our finishers alone read more than 15,000 books this summer.