Big Summer Read Swap Cards
Looking for something to keep the kids motivated to read over the summer school holidays? Look no further!
Our annual reading challenge, The Big Summer Read has begun and for every 3 junior books your child borrows you will receive 1 swap card!
We wanted to share with you some of our favourite books! Chosen by trusted and wise librarians, each of our swap cards feature books for different ages and interests. You might even use our swap cards as a recommendation for something new for your family to read and enjoy together.
Our swap cards also have a QR code to help find the featured book in our catalogue. By scanning the QR code you will be taken straight to the book on our YPRL website so you can reserve it!
Start borrowing and collect the full set of 18!
Take a look at our featured books here. Have you read any of them?

Our Junior Collection
YPRL has a wonderful Junior Book Collection, and the summer holidays are a great time to stock up on reading material for home.
Junior items might include:
- Junior Non-fiction
- Junior fiction
- Junior Audiobooks
- Junior Comics &
- Easy Readers- These books are similar to the texts your child would bring home from school. They are a great resource to stack up on for your holidays to keep the daily reading routine going!
With the summer holiday period lasting 6 weeks, keeping up the habit and routine of daily reading for your school age children is important. Try and use the holidays as a time for your child to discover what types of things they love to read!
Come in and visit YPRL for a browse. Sit down in our quiet and relaxing spaces and reread favourite books with your children as well discover new stories they will enjoy.
Take an opportunity over the holidays to discuss topics of interest with your child and take advantage of our wonderful non-fiction collection. We have many junior non-fiction texts including cooking, craft, science, transport and animals, just to name a few!
Who is eligible for swap cards?
All children between the ages of 0-18 are welcome to participate!
Independent and non-independent readers can log any book they read, that is read to them, or listened to as an audio. We encourage parents and caregivers to continue to read aloud to young people during the summer school holidays and log these books as part of our reading challenge.
Where do I find a Reading Log?
A reading log to start recording all of the books your child reads can be found in any of our local branches. Simply ask one of our friendly staff members.
Play Cards!
We even have a game you can play with your collection of swap cards.
Got duplicates? Great!
Let’s play Rock, Paper, Scissors. Library-style!
- Divide the cards between two players.
- Place card piles face down.
- Both flip over the top card.
- Whoever wins takes the card.
- A draw? Flip cards again until you have a winner. Winner takes all!
So don’t forget to come into YPRL, have a browse and borrow, borrow, borrow!
For every 3 Junior books borrowed come and see one of our friendly staff for a Big Summer Read Swap Card!
Keep an eye out for this event happening early January:
NGV Kids on Tour and Swap Card Meet, Wednesday 24 January, 2.30pm- 3.30om at Mill Park Library:
Get creative this summer with the National Gallery of Victoria Kids on Tour! In partnership with NGV, the Kids on Tour offers children and families across Victoria the opportunity to engage with art and creativity with free school holiday activities. As an added bonus, bring all your collected Big Summer Read swap cards and see if others have the ones you are missing. Complete your swap card collection today.
You can find out more about the Big Summer Read here or pop into your local library, grab a reading log and start reading!