Over 170 children enjoyed a morning of crafts and activities culminating with Macastory’s Roald Dahl themed theatre show as part of the Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge Scotland.

Run by national charity The Reading Agency in partnership with Scotland’s libraries and Tesco Bank, the Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge Scotland encourages children to read six books during the summer holidays, a time when children’s literacy skills traditionally dip.

With a grant available to libraries taking part in the challenge, the team at Stirling Council put the funding towards this event with Macastory which was designed to inspire children and show them just how much fun reading and libraries can be.

The Reading Agency and libraries have worked together to create a new theme for the Challenge, and to mark Roald Dahl’s 100th birthday the theme is ‘The Big Friendly Read’ which is sure to encourage children to rise to the challenge across the summer.

Quentin Blake has designed exclusive collecting cards which feature many marvellous characters created by Roald Dahl and fun activities for the children to collect as they progress through the challenge.

Adele Mills, senior community investment manager at Tesco Bank said: "Reading for pleasure is one of the best ways we like to spend the holidays so we’re delighted that children from Stirling got involved in the Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge Scotland through their local library. The challenge aims to inspire 40,000 children across Scotland to participate this summer – that’s a lot of children reading for pleasure, which can only be a good thing for them their parents and their future.”

Stirling Council Convenor for Community Regeneration and Planning Corrie McChord said: “Stirling Council are proud to have taken part in this year’s Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge. Encouraging children to read for pleasure not only helps with their literary development during the summer holidays, but is great fun; this year demand to take part in Stirling has exceeded expectations, with the highest number of children ever engaged with the programme.

“It was great to see so many of the young people who came along to the sold out event at Stirling’s Albert Halls talking about their favourite books and characters. All the children thoroughly enjoyed the hands-on crafts, activities and Macastory performance.”