Dublin City Council is delighted to launch the Teen Citywide Read 2026, organised by Dublin City Libraries and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, with the support of the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport. The 2026 campaign, continues a successful programme that encourages Transition Year students across the city to read for pleasure, connect with their local library and engage with contemporary Irish writing.
This year’s programme, running from October to December, features two books by Irish authors, offering students a broader range of reading experiences and reflecting the diverse interests, backgrounds and reading preferences of teenagers across the city. The selected titles are Something Terrible Happened Last Night by bestselling author Sam Blake, published by Gill Books, and Mixed Up: An Irish Boy’s Journey to Belonging by writer, activist and speaker Leon Diop, published by Little Island.
Something Terrible Happened Last Night is a contemporary young adult thriller set in Dublin. When a group of teenage friends discover a body after a party, they begin investigating the mystery themselves. Combining social media, rumours and multiple perspectives, the novel was shortlisted for Teen and Young Adult Book of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2023.
Mixed Up: An Irish Boy’s Journey to Belonging is a powerful memoir exploring Irish Book Award-winning author Leon Diop’s experience of growing up mixed-race in Tallaght, addressing issues of identity, belonging, racism and neurodiversity with honesty, warmth and humour.
The Teen Citywide Read Programme
The programme launches on Thursday 8th October at Coolock Library, where students will meet with Cllr Clodagh Ní Mhuirí, representing Lord Mayor Daryl Barron, and authors Sam Blake and Leon Diop.
Participating schools will be provided with sets of the selected titles for their school libraries, while students will be encouraged to visit their local library branch, take a guided tour, join the library, and borrow books.
Students will also take part in author workshops. This year’s featured authors, Sam Blake and Leon Diop, will visit libraries across Dublin, giving young readers the opportunity to engage directly with the writers behind the selected titles.
Dublin City Council
Speaking about the programme, Lord Mayor of Dublin Daryl Barron said:
“It is a pleasure to support Teen Citywide Read 2026, which encourages young people to discover the fun of reading and what their local library has to offer. I hope everyone taking part enjoys this year’s selected titles and the opportunity to meet authors Sam Blake and Leon Diop.”
Acting City Librarian Brendan Teeling said:
‘Like many readers, I got into books as a teenager, and our Teen Citywide Read encourages today’s teenagers to get into books as well. It’s about giving young people the time and the space to read something because they want to, not because they have to. I hope every student who comes through our doors this autumn joins up, borrows a book and keeps coming back.’
Author Sam Blake:
‘I’m thrilled that Something Terrible Happened Last Night has been chosen for the brilliant Citywide Teen Read for Transition Year. To paraphrase Frank Serafini ‘there is no such thing as a young person who hates to read; there are only young people who have not found the right book,’ but there are so many other things grabbing teens’ attention today, finding that book can be hard. This initiative provides that opportunity, and I hope the choice of a pacy crime novel with a cast that aims to reflect today’s 16 and 17 year olds will grab readers’ interest, get them talking and get them reading.’
Author Leon Diop:
“I’m delighted to be taking part in this programme, My book is about a journey to becoming comfortable with your own identity and that is exactly what I would love to help young readers in Dublin with too. Reading someone else’s story is the fastest way to understand your own. I’m hoping that through this wonderful programme we will be able to look at how we build positive attitudes towards our own identities and be respectful of different people.”
Teen Citywide Campaign 2026
The campaign is run by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and Dublin City Libraries, in partnership with Little Island Books and Gill Books, and is funded by Dublin City Council and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport.
Both books are available to borrow from Dublin City Libraries, in print at local branches and as ebooks on BorrowBox.”
#citywideread
About Something Terrible Happened Last Night
It’s Katie’s 17th birthday – the dancefloor is packed, the drink is flowing and Rave-fess, the Raven’s Hill School confession site, is alight with gossip. Then a huge fight breaks out, sending guests fleeing. When Frankie, Jess and Sorcha go back to help Katie clear up her wrecked house before her parents get home, they find more than broken bottles … There’s a body on the living room floor. The gripping teen thriller that will keep everyone guessing.
Published by Gill Books in 2023. Order your copy online here.
About Sam Blake
Sam Blake is a multiple number 1 bestselling adult thriller writer, whose books have been shortlisted three times for Irish Crime Novel of the Year. Under her real name of Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin, she is the founder of Writing.ie, the Inkwell Group and Murder One, Ireland’s acclaimed International Crime Writing Festival.
About Mixed Up: An Irish Boy’s Journey to Belonging
A groundbreaking memoir about growing up mixed-race in Ireland, by the Irish Book Award-winning author and media personality Leon Diop. Mixed-race experience in Ireland has never been described so honestly. Diop, a charismatic public figure and strong positive male role-model for young Irish people, tells his story from his first day as the only brown boy in school to his powerful recent experience reconnecting with his African roots in Senegal.
Growing up, Diop struggled with his identity, got into trouble, and lost his way, before turning his life around and finding his mission: helping Black and mixed-race Irish people tell their own stories. Now it is Diop’s turn to tell his own story, his journey from mixed-up kid to embracing his own identity, one that will inspire young Irish people and help counter dangerous political narratives in Ireland today.
Published by Little Island Books in 2026. Order your copy online here.
About Leon Diop
Leon Diop is from Tallaght, Ireland. Born to a white Irish mother and Senegalese father, he grew up in a mixed ethnic and religious household. He is the founder of the Black & Irish advocacy group, host of the Black & Irish podcast, activist, educator, public speaker, and was an Obama Foundation European Leader from 2024 to 2025.
About the Teen Citywide Read Initiative:
This year marks the 13th year of the city-wide reading initiative and the third time the campaign has focused on teenagers.
Books chosen for the Citywide Reading Campaign in previous years included Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent by Alan Early, The Nightmare Club series featuring Annie Graves, The Powers by Kevin Stevens, Danger is Everywhere by David O’Doherty and Chris Judge, The Book of Learning by E.R. Murray, Knights of the Borrowed Dark by Dave Rudden, Making Millions by Erika McGann, Bumpfizzle the Best on Planet Earth by children’s laureate, Patricia Forde, Animal Crackers by Sarah Webb and Alan Nolan, The Gone Book by Helena Close and Crying Wolf by James Butler.
The aim of the campaign is to encourage children & teenagers to read for pleasure. Multiple copies of the chosen books are bought for Dublin City Libraries and hundreds of children attend events in their local library with the author.
See here for further information.
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