On Saturday 13 July the 2013 Summer Reading Challenge was officially launched in England and Wales with an explosion of fun, free and motivating reading opportunities for children. Libraries right across England and Wales will be inspiring children to sign up to the Summer Reading Challenge at their local library as the long school holidays begin. The Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge Scotland launched earlier as the school holidays start sooner in Scotland.

Enjoying reading is crucial to a child's literacy development, and to their chances, and the Creepy House themed 2013 Challenge aims to make reading irresistible. The Summer Reading Challenge is the biggest reading for pleasure programme in the UK and this year we hope 750,000 four to eleven year olds will take part, supporting them to read in the summer holidays when literacy levels can drop damagingly.

Get Reading Festival

On 13 July 30 librarians joined us in launching the Summer Reading Challenge at the Evening Standard's Get Reading Festival, attended by thousands of children in Trafalgar Square. Summer Reading Challenge Champions Malorie Blackman, Chris Riddell and the rapper Akala performed on stage and roving librarians in the Square signed children up to the library on the spot. We also had a Creepy House marquee where parents could get expert book advice from librarians and children took part in a creepy face competition.

Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman says: "I am thrilled to be taking part in the Get Reading festival on the day the Summer Reading Challenge launches. I'll be encouraging the thousands of children in Trafalgar Square today to sign up to the Challenge. It's so important for children to learn to love reading and The Summer Reading Challenge does that highly effectively. It's fun, it's free to take part, and absolutely anyone can get involved."

Creepy face competition

At the Get Reading Festival children had the opportunity to have their photo taken for our creepy face competition. The five creepiest faces are on the Summer Reading Challenge website and here are all of the children who entered.

Summer Reading Challenge Champions

A host of popular children's authors and major public figures are also lending their support to the Challenge as Summer Reading Challenge Champions including Frank Lampard, Julia Donaldson, Michael Rosen, Jacqueline Wilson, Charlie Higson, Liz Pichon, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Cressida Cowell and Justin Somper.

Frank Lampard says: "I'm proud to be a Champion for Creepy House, and that Frankie's Magic Football is included on the suggested books to read list. Reading with my children is incredibly important to me and a wonderful way to spend time together as a family. I hope that many boys, and girls, will be inspired this summer to take up The Reading Agency's Summer Reading Challenge with libraries and enjoy all of the brilliant books available to them at their local library."

Around the country, the Creepy House starter packs will be starting to appear in local libraries from this weekend. Participants will receive a Creepy House poster and trader cards, and can earn scratch-and-sniff stinky stickers as they read their six books. Along the way they'll come across some creepy characters... look out for Wurzel Wendy, Wolf Kid, Bunny boy, Twilight Tim, Spookity, Frankenmouse, and the Skeleton Family Robinson - soon to be appearing at a library near you!

Online campaign

To promote the challenge to a wider audience we held a social media campaign on 13 July. Parents, librarians, authors and publishers got involved on facebook and twitter telling us about their preparations for the Challenge and encouraging others to get involved. You can see the campaign highlights on storify.

Get involved

Children can sign up to the Summer Reading Challenge at their local library. They can log on to the Summer Reading Challenge website to chat, take part in competitions and find new books using the Booksorter.

Parents, carers and grandparents can keep up to date with news from the Summer Reading Challenge on our facebook page. There are also more photos from the event on the facebook page.

Young people can also sign up to be Summer Reading Challenge volunteers at their library. In 2012, 4382 young people aged 11-24 were volunteers. This month we have been given a £1 million gift from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to help involve more young people as Reading Activist volunteers.

This year we're running a donations campaign to help bring the Summer Reading Challenge to more disadvantaged children. It only costs £3 for three disadvantaged children to take part in the Challenge for free. Please donate £3 to our campaign by texting READ06 £3 to 70070 or by visiting justgiving.com/SummerReadingChallenge.