Premier Lara Giddings today urged young Tasmanians to get involved in the Premier's Reading Challenge and help celebrate the National Year of Reading at the same time.

Launching this year's Challenge at the Hobart LINC, Ms Giddings said she was delighted that 154 schools and 36 home educators had already registered to take part.

"That makes for a total of 29,316 students who have already taken the challenge to read 10 books in 10 weeks, starting on Monday," Ms Giddings said.

"Importantly children can choose whatever they want to read from novels to cookbooks and picture books. What is important is that they find something of interest to them which will encourage them to read.

"Whether they're fantastic readers already, or just need a bit of encouragement, I hope all primary school students will get involved in the Challenge in 2012."

Ms Giddings said the 2012 was particularly significant because it is also the National Year of Reading.

"Throughout the year people of all ages will be celebrating the importance of reading at events across Australia, and I know that LINC Tasmania has an exciting program of activities in store for Tasmanians."

Ms Giddings said children would be encouraged to write book reviews for the reading challenge website, and the best 6 reviews every week will win a book voucher.

"When participants finish the challenge they will get a special certificate and will go into the draw to win an e-book reader.

The Premier's Reading Challenge runs from Monday 18 June to Friday 24 August 2012.

For more information, visit www.premiersreadingchallenge.tas.gov.au.

To find out more about National Year of Reading events in Tasmania, visit www.linc.tas.gov.au.