Pom poms and poems at Kirkby Library's cheerleading event

Wannabe cheerleaders were invited to an unusual library event in Kirkby in August.

Anyone who fancied dancing with pom poms, chanting with a team and learning the basic cheerleading moves could join in. It was all part of National Year of Reading and a big push to get more youngsters into libraries and books this Summer.

Librarian Joanne Burman of the Nottinghamshire Library Service says:

"We've come up with some zany and fun ideas to get people into Libraries this summer, including song lyric quizzes and puppet making, but this was probably the silliest! Our range of High School Musical books are so popular that we thought we would have an event to celebrate their success."

"The idea was to get the girls – and hopefully some boys - thinking about rhythm and rhyme as they made up a suitable chant. The chant was about books and how great reading is – rather than football."

The event included a pom-pom making session, dance move training from the LA School of Dance and plenty of noisy chanting. It culminated with a cheerleading session outside the library.

Statistics show that youngsters are reading less and less, but Nottinghamshire's libraries are bucking the trend this Summer with a fantastic response from children to their Summer Reading Challenge. Kirkby library alone has had 300 children join this year so far.

Find out information about other National Year of Reading fun and creative events in libraries.