As part of Manchester City of Literature’s Festival of Libraries 2022, we asked young people in Greater Manchester to make their dream libraries using shoeboxes and materials around the home.

Now our shoebox libraries competition is over, and we had so many brilliant entries! We had libraries in space, libraries with book monsters, libraries with dogs, a swimming pool library, rocket ships and so much more. Thank you all so much for your entries, we’re thrilled to announce the three winners of the competition, winning an exciting goody bag from the Festival of Libraries!

In third place, we have… Edie aged 8 whose library was fit for a Queen! The library was inspired by a book they recently took out of their local library: The Everywhere Bear. Edie had even stocked her library with her little sisters favourite books.

In second place there’s… Hugo, aged 4 with an amazing shoebox library inspired by his favourite book The Queen’s Hat. We loved your colouring in Hugo, especially on those beefeater hats!

And taking the number one spot in this year’s shoebox libraries competition, with an outstanding library, we have… Sophia! Sophia is 8 years old and attends St. Vincents primary school in Altrincham. We loved her environmental activism themed library, it had grass on the floor and flowers growing in all corners and everything is made from recycled materials, with big windows so those plants can grow! The best part was Sophia said she just wanted to sit in a big comfy chair and read a book in her dream library. Us too Sophia, can we come?

Congratulations everyone! Please check your emails for information about your prizes. The standard of shoebox libraries was really high, so the judges would also like to commend the following libraries for effort, imagination and creativity–all things the Festival of Libraries is all about! Zoe, Maria, Jacob, Elizabeth, Alex, Aleena and Ana–all your libraries were brilliant, be sure to keep visiting your local library for lots more inspiration.

If you missed the competition but would still like to make your own shoebox library, you can watch the video below with artist Klaire Doyle for how to join in. Be sure to keep tagging us in your photo’s so we can see.