Members of IMH's ReaderBank research team recently spent two days in the Discovery Zone at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, exploring the reading imagination with young readers and school children.
From 26–27 August, Georgia Punton, Ben Alderson-Day and Arya Ray invited visitors to think about what happens in our minds when we read. Conversations explored how characters sound, how stories feel, and how the worlds we encounter on the page take shape in our imagination.
Previously, ReaderBank activities have been targeted at adults, but this year the team adapted our activities for younger readers, exploring how the reading imagination works in its earlier stages and how it changes as we grow older, shaping preferences, tracing habits, and changing minds.
Young readers shared their own experiences of reading and took part in the updated ReaderBank Imagination Quiz, designed to explore different ways of experiencing stories. The quiz introduced a new set of Reader Types developed with younger readers in mind: the Shapeshifter, Fortune-Teller, Watcher, Listener, Storyteller and Adventurer. Participants could discover their own Reader Type and take home ReaderBank trading cards and bookmarks.
The team was delighted by the curiosity and creativity of the young readers who visited the Discovery Zone. Teachers and librarians also showed great interest in the project, and took away curated packets of information and replicable ReaderBank activities for their classrooms and reading communities. The conversations provided a valuable opportunity to hear directly about how children and young people experience books, characters and imagined worlds, and will inform new directions for the ReaderBank project.
ReaderBank’s lead researcher Ben Alderson-Day also featured in other events in the Book Festival, including a panel conversation with award-winning author Maggie O’Farrell.
Thank you to everyone who joined us in Edinburgh. It was a privilege to discuss the reading imagination with you!
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