How schools are getting children excited about reading again

Ajmal, 7, is an avid fan of the InvestiGators comics and can outline his favourite plot in exhaustive detail. Wren, 8, is working through Little Women and says she didn’t read much in year 1 but now loves chapter books. Nwanneka, 9, enjoys Kid Normal: "I like it because there’s this 11-year-old called Murph and he ends up in a school where everybody has a superpower, except him." Research has shown there is a reading for pleasure crisis among children in the UK, but children at Christ Church primary fizz with excitement about books.

Last month the queen visited to open a new library, funded by Bloomberg, the first to be opened in the government’s National Year of Reading. From the outside it looks like a shed; inside there are colourful shelves, toadstools, a leaf-patterned carpet and a hidey-hole den.

"We’ve got lots of different books," Stina, 8, one of five new librarians, says. The library is the culmination of years of work with the NLT to encourage reading at the school, which serves families living on nearby estates.

UK

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