Giant moving story book to start touring England this autumn

A huge 1.5m high story book could be on its way to a community near you to collect original stories created by children and their families.

It's called The Story that Moves and it's been funded by Arts Council England, working with eight "story venues" across the country.

Children will be invited to add their stories, working with writers, performers and storytellers to create a tale to add to the book.

Piers Torday is an author and ambassador for one of the story venues, Ministry of Stories, and he has this message for kids wanting to take part: "To all those story writers of the future: go for it!"

The Story that Moves will start its journey in East London, and it'll visit story venues in Exeter, Rotherham, Liverpool, Oxford, Cornwall and Manchester.

Ministry of Stories says that these places together engage more than 380,000 children and young people every year.

Kids will get to take part during workshops, where they will use a kit of story parts from the book to craft their tale.

The project aims to celebrate the National Year of Reading 2026.

A big goal of the National Year of Reading is to encourage families to read together for 10 minutes each day.

The tour will finish in April 2027, and the team behind The Story that Moves says that a permanent home will be found to showcase the snapshot of stories that have been collected.