A book club for young children helping to inspire them to be passionate about reading and writing has adapted to coronavirus by taking its lessons online.

The Extra-Reader Club, which before lockdown help one session a month at both Bolton Central Library and Farnworth Library, has taken to holding its lessons over Zoom, where children between the ages of five and 12 can talk about books they've been reading and books they've been writing.

The class is run by Habibat Akinteye, 35, originally from Nigeria, and now living in Farnworth with her husband and three children, Phoebe 9, Hadassah, 7, and Elkanah 3.

She came to the UK in 2001, attending Wigan college and then graduating from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2009. She is now a director with a small publishing company, which she does alongside studying Mental Health Nursing at UCLan.

Phoebe, who attends St James Primary School, is due to release her first children's book "The war of soaps and sponges" just before her 10th birthday on September 28, using the skills she has learnt from her mum's classes.

Mrs Akinteye said: "She's a happy girl and a peacemaker, always helpful, a great delight. I believe she picked up interest in writing from watching me write books as I've always been a children's book author.

"Everytime I picked up my laptop to write, she would take my small laptop and try to think of a story to write. I am sure that the club also helped a lot. Her interest in reading and writing has grown so much over the years, it's great.

"I started the reading club in 2018 with two other mums. It started out of the desire to help children excel in their studies and maximise their potentials.

"Growing up I didn't enjoy reading. As there were not a lot of books in my reach as a little girl growing up in Africa. But I enjoyed reading picture books, especially snow white.

"When I became a mum, and my children's school started emphasising on reading every day, even if it was just for 10 minutes a day, I researched into it, I wanted to know what reading from young age could do.

"Then I found a lot of articles online about the importance of reading to children. How reading can help them to do well through school and as adolescence. So I started the club.

"The club has up to 30 registered children and currently the creative writing class via zoom has up to 20 children attending every week. It's the aim of the club to encourage children to fall in love with reading and use their imagination to write beautiful stories.

"We used to have competitions every class to encourage the kids to do more reading and writing and their imagination when it comes to what they write always amazes me."

The Extra Readers Club is a member of Bolton CVS.

For more about the club, visit The Extra Readers Facebook page.