Victorian Premiers' Reading Challenge

From March to September, 276 Lakes' students took part in the Victorian Premiers' Reading Challenge. Throughout this time, students had to complete reading 15 books, from a variety of genres. The aim of the Challenge is to promote a love of reading. It is not a competition, but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely. As readers, Izak, Michelle, Isum, Rylee, Angela and Sithuli explain:

Izak F – Year 5

I read a lot of amazing novels, but one that inspired me the most was 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' by Jeff Kinney. The novel is about a normal kid, in a normal town, but everything goes wrong! He never get things right and every time he thinks he’s in the clear, it goes terribly wrong. I loved doing the Premiers’ Reading Challenge, because it was so fun!

Michelle K - Year 6

Throughout the challenge I enjoyed reading a lot of books. The challenge allowed me to experiment with different genres, authors and styles of writing. Series that I read that I enjoyed the most during the challenge involved 'The Hunger Games', 'Wings of Fire' series and 'Murder Most Unladylike'. The 'Wings of Fire' series was based around dragons. I read books on fantasy, mystery, adventure and drama. I really enjoyed choosing a vast range of books to read. Overall I relished in reading from an expanded variety of books.

Isum M - Year 6

I successfully accomplished the Premiers' Reading Challenge. It was quite a useful tool that vastly boosted my reading skills. When I began the challenge, I decided to read series of books instead of just a random book.

At the time, I was intrigued by the adventure genre. The 'Treehouse' series caught my eye as I was browsing through the library one day. I had heard about the 'Treehouse' series from my friends, and they said it was a great series. Over the next few weeks, I began to read the series. Overall, I thought that the books got better after each story, as the ideas get increasingly crazy. My favourite book out of the series was probably the ‘65-Storey Treehouse’ because of the amount of 'movement' in it during the storyline.

Overall, I thought the challenge was difficult because I was determined to read a mixture of higher-level books. However, I believe that one could make it easier or harder for themselves depending on the books they choose to read in amongst the contest. I am looking forward for the contest next year and hope to conquer it again.

Rylee M - Year 7

I really loved reading this year in the Premiers’ Reading Challenge. The books I enjoyed reading were, 'The Fever Code' by Justin Dasher, 'The First Heroes of Olympus' and 'The Trials of Apollo' by Rick Riordan. I think my favourite read had to be the 'Magnus Chase'series, by Rick Riordan. Luckily, for me the third book is coming out, and I really hope to get it as quickly as possible. I think that this is the best series Riordan has done. It was awesome and I could not stop reading it!

Angela R - Year 7

I'm not a big book worm, but I still decided to enter this year’s Premiers’ Reading Challenge. I started reading 'Mao's Last Dancer' by Li Cunxin and I got really into it. The book is about how a little boy, from a poor family, discovered his passion of dance after being chosen to join a world-class dance academy. He went on to be one of the best dances in the country, chosen to perform in Broadway plays all over the world. It would have to be my favourite book. 

Sithuli M – Year 6

Over the course of the Premier’s Reading Challenge I was able to read a lot of really interesting books. The process of the challenge was that after we read a book, we had to post it onto the Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge webpage, and once we had read 15 books, we finished with the challenge. I think the Premiers’ Reading Challenge is a good way to encourage children to read more. My personal favourite book I read whilst the challenge was on was a book called ‘Forever Friends’ by Anne- Marie Conway. It followed a story of two young girls that were best friends but their families were not allowing them to be friends because of past family problems. It followed a crime mystery along with the story as well so it was a great book and it was so hard to put it down!