PRESS RELEASE
Author of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt launches Z-arts crowd funder encouraging children and families to read with his top tips on reading for pleasure.
Z-arts have teamed up with Manchester City Council and the National Literacy Trust on the Read Manchester campaign and today have released the top tips on reading for pleasure from the much-loved children’s author Michael Rosen.
Z-arts are aiming to raise £2,500 through a Just Giving campaign which aims to encourage children and families from all over Manchester to enjoy reading for pleasure. The funds will enable Z-arts to bring an iconic BookBench sculpture to Hulme and to one of the schools who have been to visit the immersive experience. The BookBenches will create a legacy for all the children who have been to Z-arts to visit Bear Hunt, Chocolate Cake and Bad Things, the interactive exhibition which is enabling children and families to relive the bear hunt through the eyes of Michael Rosen and see his poems and stories come to life from the page.
Michael’s top tips on reading for pleasure were filmed during the author’s sell-out poetry performances at Z-arts on the 7th October. As an advocate for reading for pleasure, Michael in partnership with Z-arts and Manchester City Council is aiming to raise literacy levels across Greater Manchester and to inspire families to pick up books and read. Michael’s tips include: Reading to children, surrounding children with reading material, finding their own interests, the internet as a gateway to reading, making reading fun and books are the start of an adventure with words. Audiences can listen in full to all of Michael’s tips on the Z-arts YouTube channel.
Z-arts Chief Executive, Liz O’Neill said: “Michael’s top tips are a real inspiration for children and families to pick up a book and discover the pleasure of reading, whether its comics and magazines, novels, or online literature.”
Director of Education and Skills for Manchester City Council, John Edwards, who launched the Bear Hunt, Chocolate Cake and Bad Things commented that: “Reading is the key to learning, well-being and opportunity. Being able to read is the foundation for success in education and employment.”
Bear Hunt, Chocolate Cake and Bad Things is an interactive experience for children and families, bringing the printed word to life by recreating the poems and stories in a larger than life set that children can explore and play in. Families are able to explore the fantastic stories and poems of former Children’s Laureate and bestselling writer Michael Rosen whose works include We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Chocolate Cake, The Book of Bad Things and Uncle Gobb and the DreadShed.
Younger children will be able to participate in a Bear Hunt trail whilst older children can go on a fun fact finding mission and create poems of their own to take away. Michael has collaborated on the project, and the exhibition features hidden rooms where clues can be found that reveal the inspiration behind Michael’s writing, including his Grandparents’ sitting room and his childhood classroom.
Award winning author Michael Rosen says: “This exhibition is one of the most exciting things to have happened in my writing career. I am someone who has found a way of writing that is often about digging up stuff to do with my past and here it is made into a giant exhibition that families and schools will be able to explore. I hope that children will see that reading’s not something that’s dry and stuck to the page, but something you can live. I hope that this will lead to many more children writing and performing new poems and stories.”
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For further information, images, or for interview / press review ticket requests, please contact Laura Stevens at laura@z-arts.org or 0161 226 1912
About Read Manchester – The Read Manchester campaign which aims to promote reading and the power it has to boost literacy and transform lives throughout the city. Throughout the year Read Manchester will be promoting events and activities across the city to help improve literacy levels amongst all age groups and encourage people young and old to read for pleasure.