A CIRENCESTER schoolboy looks set to become the town’s youngest entrepreneur after inventing a unique device encouraging his classmates to get into reading.

Gabriel Carter, a pupil of Powell’s School in Cirencester, turned his bedroom into a top-secret workshop as he designed and produced hundreds of bookmasks.

The bookmasks, which look like regular bookmarks but decorated with the heads of literature’s most famous characters, have even been sold at Gabriel’s school to raise money for new books.

“He’s a very bright and entrepreneurial little boy with some really big plans,” said Gabriel’s mum Sophie Carter-Tweedale.

“He has literally been like a one-boy factory ever since he came up with the idea for the bookmasks,” she added.

Gabriel draws and colours each bookmark head individually before cutting them out and laminating them for protection.

The seven-year-old inventor, who has aspirations of creating a website to sell the bookmasks in the future, made more than 200 bookmasks in his bedroom over the course of one weekend.

His mum Sophie said: “Gabriel has been reading since the age of three. He absolutely adores books and just being creative in general.

“He’s had so much support from his friends at school who have all been really eager to help him make the bookmasks. We all think that it’s a really good way of encouraging children to pick up a book.”

It is hoped that any money left over from the sale of Gabriel’s bookmasks will be donated to Children In Need.

For more information on Powell’s School, visit www.powells.gloucs.sch.uk.