Welcome to our Read Manchester Spring update. We are well into the National Year of Reading now, with lots of exciting events coming up both nationally and locally. Since January, we’ve been out and about for World Book Day and celebrated diverse and inclusive books in our See Myself in Books Festival. Find out more and see how you can Go All In with reading this year.
World Book Day
Read Manchester and Manchester Libraries celebrated World Book Day on 5 March with community book giveaways, author visits and special library storytimes.
We partnered with Gorton Tesco’s Community Champion to hand out books and encourage children to join a Treasure Hunt in store. Literacy Champions chatted to parents and carers about reading and shared information about support for parents locally, including the library at Gorton Hub.
Libraries hosted hundreds of school pupils who met author Ashley Thorpe to find out about his fantasy stories The Boy to Beat the Gods and Spirit Warriors. Babies and toddlers at library storytimes were also given free World Book Day books and 900 books were gifted to families by our partners in Children’s Centres and Family Hubs.
Check out the full story here. Manchester celebrates World Book Day with author events for schools and free books given out to supermarket shoppers | Manchester City Council
See Myself in Books
Following the success of last year’s inaugural festival, Read Manchester held its second festival in celebration of See Myself in Books. Held between 9-20 March, thirteen top children’s authors / illustrators spoke to children in libraries, schools and at the fabulous Stoller Hall for our flagship event. The Stoller Hall event brought top authors Ashley Thorpe, Humza Arshad and Nadia Shireen to an audience of 350 pupils from nine primary schools in an event celebrating representation of diverse backgrounds and lives, and the stories that unite us all. Each child received a book by one of the day’s authors, to take home and read.
In all, over 3000 children from 35 primary and 7 high schools took part in one online and 25 in-person sessions throughout the fortnight – you can read all about the festival on our blog here. Authors represented the themes from our two curated book collections of ethnic diversity and neurodiversity. We know from research by the National Literacy Trust that having access to diverse books helps provide a boost to reading enjoyment, with almost 1 in 3 (31.5%) children and young people saying that having books that represent them would make them want to read more, but over half of children (53.1%) saying they experience difficulties finding books with characters or people like them.
Go All In with the National Year of Reading
The National Year of Reading campaign has been set up to address the decline in reading amongst children, young people and adults and it aims to position reading as a powerful contemporary activity, to engage new audiences. With resources for schools, community groups, workplaces and volunteers amongst others, there are plenty of ideas to use within your own setting or just to join up in your own right (see below).
Parents can discover lots of ideas to bring reading into focus in the family, from focusing on hobbies or listening to audiobooks, to building on gaming genres or graphic novels.
Schools are catered for with activities and resources for each term, webinars and events, and can register to access offers.
The whole campaign revolves around the theme of ‘Go all In’ to emphasize the idea of reading around your favourite interests and hobbies as a way in to engaging readers. Find out more at Go All In.
Go All In with volunteering – your invitation to become a Literacy Champion
Read Manchester Literacy Champions are volunteers who do things in their free time to inspire a love of reading and literacy in their communities. Projects and events organised by our volunteers might look completely different and can range from stickering books to telling stories or hiding books in parks!
One of our amazing Literacy Champions, Emily recently organised a free community event for International Women’s Day at Ladybarn Community Hub. Alongside crafts, quizzes, information and refreshments they gifted books, promoted the hub’s Little Library and encouraged people to join their monthly book group by offering copies of Elizabeth Gaskell’s first novel Mary Barton. They were also joined by volunteers from Elizabeth Gaskell House who encouraged people to find out more about this literary local.
This is just one of the ways that volunteers can add value to the brilliant work that’s already happening in the city as part of the National Year of Reading. In 2026, we’re shining a national spotlight on that work and creating even more opportunities for people to join in. Whether you already give your time or want to start, every moment you can offer makes a difference. For more information and to sign up, look at our website.
2025 highlights
We’ve been looking back at a brilliant 2025 for Read Manchester! We delivered key projects reaching thousands of children, young people and adults across the city – far too many to capture in a single infographic unfortunately! Highlights appearing in the infographic include:
- We gifted nearly 68,000 books (26,000 of those directly to schools, including our Transition Reads titles).
- See Myself in Books Festival 2025 saw 3,469 children from 43 schools take part in 32 events.
We are looking forward to building on these figures in 2026, the National Year of Reading, inspiring more people to make reading a regular part of their lives.
Early Years Spotlight in Gorton and Abbey Hey
Thanks to funding secured by National Literacy Trust, a programme is being developed in Gorton and Abbey Hey ward which pilots some locally created approaches to support families. This includes co-creating resources with Health Visitors, and holding pop-up events in the community, working to promote children’s developmental checks to parents. There will be a campaign to break down stereotypes and promote ‘boys love reading,’ as well as engaging around school readiness and the Early Years Transition Read.
My First Library card
We are about to launch a brand-new library card for babies – My First Library Card. All parents registering their child’s birth in Manchester will be given a leaflet with tips on sharing books with their baby and inviting them to collect their babies’ new library card from their local library.
We hope that the lovely new card, designed by local children’s author and illustrator Emma Reynolds, will be something treasured by parents to welcome their newborn.
Coming Up…
Reading Roadshows
We are really looking forward to a (hopefully!) sunny summer and getting out and about to promote the Summer Reading Challenge with partner organisations. This year’s Summer Reading Challenge theme is Read to the Beat! Last year we went to five parks across the city with our Literacy Champions, joining in Play Day, Parktastic and the Wythenshawe Games, amongst others. You can find out more about this year’s brilliant book collections on the Reading Agency’s website and look out for more updates about our Reading Roadshows soon!
Baby Week
Baby Week will feature a week-long programme of activities for parents, carers and babies from 0-2 years old. Launching at Manchester Art Gallery on 15th June, 10.00-3.00pm, Read Manchester and our Literacy Champions will be taking part with lots of giveaways and support around sharing books with babies.
Take 10
We’re proud to announce that Take 10 is one of the ‘big moments’ of the National Year of Reading calendar. #Take10toRead was created by Read Manchester in 2018 and encourages people to read for 10 minutes every day to improve their wellbeing and support their literacy. Find out more about our previous Take 10 campaigns and look out for our new plans for October this year, coming soon!