MORE than 40,000 children will turn super sleuth to solve a series of mysterious crimes at Essex Libraries as part of this year’s Summer Reading Challenge.

The UK’s biggest annual reading initiative, which helps improve child literacy during the summer holidays when reading levels drop, will reach more than a quarter of all children in the county with almost half a million books borrowed.

This year there’s something fishy going on in local libraries and the Animal Agents need help to crack the case. Children, aged three and over, must collect their free ‘top secret’ information pack, which challenges them to read six books of their choice in order to collect clues to solve three crime scenarios.

The clues will come in the form of stickers, including some special smelly stickers, which the children need to complete their information pack and earn their Animal Agents certificate and medal.

The under 3s are not forgotten with a special version of Animal Agents created just for them, while children 10 and over can join ImagiNation 2017, to help their library make fantastic book displays by creating artwork or reviews inspired by the books they have read.

The free challenge, which runs from Saturday July 15 to Saturday September 2, is produced by The Reading Agency and is being delivered by libraries for the 19th year.

Visit summerreadingchallenge.org.uk.