Before the next equinox is upon us we thought we should look back to those long June days and celebrate Crediton’s first Big Read.

Our aim was to inspire as many people as possible in the Crediton area to read and talk about the same books, and to promote reading as a shared pleasure.

The idea of a Big Read was new to many people and Crediton embraced it enthusiastically. It was a genuinely community wide project which succeeded because of all the businesses and organisations involved who supported and contributed to the project, and, of course, the readers.

The Big Read generated interest not only in and around Crediton but also among visitors to the town, and we’ve had great feedback from adults and children, including some young, previously reluctant readers. Some of the books managed to find their way to places as far flung as Yorkshire, Scotland and the Dominican Republic!

We are so grateful to our key partners Pan Macmillan and Crediton Hospital League of Friends, who helped us make the Big Read a reality, and for support from Crediton Town Council, Crediton Library and Crediton Festival, and from Hayward’s, Landscore and Sandford Primary Schools.

It was exciting to expand from the printed page into some fantastic spin-off events, including:

Visits from children’s author Sue Mongredien, the Gruffalo, and Queen of Crime, Ann Cleeves:

Also the creation of an inspired dramatic musical performance A Bird’s Eye View by scratch performance group ‘An Unkindness of Ravens’, based on the Big Read novel Raven Black. This was cunningly recorded by Jack for your home viewing pleasure…grab the popcorn, make yourselves comfortable and click here to watch!

And brilliant work with Jez Taylor and the Crediton Youth Theatre around Sue Mongredien’s Captain Cat which you can watch here.

We’ve worked with old friends, made new ones, increased readership and interest in the books and authors and had a fabulous time doing it! We hope that shared pleasure from reading will be a long-lasting legacy of the Big Read in Crediton. Thank you to everyone who took part!