Summer reading club celebrates grand finale with live escape experience

The participants of this year's summer reading club in the city library have now been honoured. A total of 29 children who took part as part of a team or individually were honoured with a "Reading Oscar" on stage. As a highlight, author Jens Baumeister took the more than 60 guests on an exciting live escape experience.

This year's Summer Reading Club once again came to a fitting end with the grand Oscar gala. The Bocholt City Library welcomed around 60 guests to the Oscar ceremony - including the participants of the Summer Reading Club and their families and friends.

"We are delighted to be able to celebrate the enthusiasm for literature with a big party. All children create something special together - and that deserves great appreciation", said Claudia Alders from the children's and youth library.

A love of reading and creativity awakened

Around 180 participants took part in this year's summer reading club and showed what enthusiasm they have for books. For six weeks, all the children once again competed to read, attended the workshops in the holiday programme and took advantage of the numerous additional offers such as reading boxes or photo contests.

In total, over 2136 items were borrowed from the SLC. For us as organisers, it is always particularly exciting to see the joy and enthusiasm with which the logbooks are filled in. This year, we were particularly impressed by the comments made in the online logbook about the children's motivation to read", reveals Romina Raske from the children's and youth library. The passion for books was honoured in over ten Oscar categories. These included, for example, "most diligent reading team" or "most creative team".

Live escape reading delighted the audience

First City Councillor Björn Volmering bestowed a very special honour on the guests by awarding them the school Oscar this year. "The Summer Reading Club is not only one of the largest reading promotion projects in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, but also offers many children free access to various media and books and opens the door to the library", said Björn Volmering in his laudatory speech.

After the award ceremony, an extraordinary surprise awaited the guests: all participants in this year's Summer Reading Club were able to enjoy a unique combination of puzzle fun and reading pleasure and embark on a live escape experience together with author Jens Baumeister.

The Summer Reading Club is one of the largest reading promotion projects funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, under the auspices of the Düsseldorf District Government, Specialist Centre for Public Libraries NRW.

The winners of the Reading Oscars are

1. Most diligent reader (with 55 books): Lenn de Beukelaar
2. Most beautiful logbook: Lasse, Oskar and Piet Janßen (Team Die Leseratten)
3. Best story: Marit and Inga Panhofen, Tabea Heitkönig and Marlene Effing (Team The Smurfs)
4. Family achievement: Fahrland family (Team Deep Secret)
5. Bookcover: Emma Büdding (Team Bestseller Girls)
6. Best rating: Sarah Schlabes (Team Chapter 6)
7. Greatest team achievement: Emma, Anna and Ida Büdding and Amelie Ertel (Team Bestseller Girls)
8. Best reading box: Katharina Theling and Sarah Schlabes (Team Chapter 6)
9. School Oscar (with 25 participating pupils): Mariengymnasium
10. Jubilee Oscar: Nayomi Pavlova
11. Best Bookface: Julian and Melanie Tatsch (Team Peanuts)