Stratford High School students take part in book club

To encourage teenagers to visit the Stratford library, the library is visiting them.

A regular book club is taking place at Stratford High School, as a way to build a link between the library and the students.

Stratford librarian Kate Fairhurst says the library used to host a book club for teenagers at the library after school, but it hasn't operated for a while due to declining numbers.

"I decided to start up a book club at Stratford High School to build a relationship between the library and the school and to also promote the library to teenagers."

Last week was the second session of the school based book club.

"The first session was called 'a blind date with a book'. I decided to do this for the first session to see what type of literature the students were interested in."

Debra Howells, 18, went along to the sessions and says she enjoys the book club.

"It's a very good idea, it promotes reading and you get to see the different books that are offered at the Stratford library."

School librarian Emma Loveridge says the book club is a great way to connect with the public library.

"We can share resources and ideas to promote reading."

At the session, students talked about the books they had read and choose another book to read.

"This shows the students what's available at the library but they also have the choice to read their own books," Kate says.

Kate says she plans to hold the book club once a month during the school term.