Calling all Junior Crime Solvers!

Collect the clues and solve our library mystery to win a medal!

This summer children will be challenged to solve a mystery at their local library with the Animal Agents gang. Bart the Bloodhound, Daisy Rabbit, Bernice the bear and Slip and Slide the snake twins, need help to sort out a mystery down at the library. There are four suspects but children will need to use all their detective skills to work out the clues and solve the crime!

Animal Agents: the Summer Reading Challenge starts in your local library on Saturday 15 July. It’s free for all families to take part and you can collect fun rewards as you read books through the holidays. Best of all, children are free to choose whatever library books they like!

After registering for the challenge children will be rewarded with a special Animal Agents wristband. They then collect clues about the mystery as they read books through the summer, coming back to the library to tell us what they’ve read. Special stickers – some ‘scratch and sniff’ – will help you solve the mystery. Children will be able to crack the crime after they’ve read six books and we will reward them with a special Animal Agents certificate and medal.

The Summer Reading Challenge is free and an easy way to make sure children enjoy reading during the long summer holiday. Children can choose and borrow any books they like and your local library has a great selection waiting for you – from picture books for pre-schoolers, stories and comic books for older children and information books about every topic – the choice is yours!

The really little ones can join in too with the Animal Agents Mini Challenge, collecting stickers as they share library books. When they complete the Mini Challenge libraries will reward under-threes with a special ‘gold medal sticker’ and certificate – so they can be just like their big brother or sister!

And new this year, grown-ups helping children take part can join a special reading challenge themselves! Research shows that children enjoy reading and do better at it when adults around them read too. So, see what’s on the shelf at your local library and get stuck in a good book. Even better, adults completing the challenge can enter a draw for a star prize!

Animal Agents is free and you only need a library card to register – and if you don’t have one yet we can give you one of those for free too. Visit your local library or www.westsussex.gov.uk/src to find out more.