Read for Good is proud to say that with funding from National Book Tokens, they will give out 1500 National Book Tokens to children in local schools. Read for Good wants to make reading accessible to all children who may not normally go into a bookshop or think about buying a new book. This partnership gives children the opportunity to enter a bookshop with the knowledge that they can pick a book that they would like to read.
The Yellow-Lighted Book Shop is excited to be part of this project, ‘As booksellers, we know the importance of reading. We also know that children love books – but there are systematic obstacles that can make reading a difficult habit to nurture.
The National Book Tokens Project helps tackle all these, and we are delighted to be taking part in this pilot.
We will be creating pop-up bookshops in schools, which will be giving time for students and staff to explore and discover a range of new titles – and everyone will have £10 to spend so they all get to take a new book home at the end of the day.
The Project gives us a chance to help schools create reading communities, with all the social and educational benefits which come from that.
Simply giving books away is easy, but meaningless. This is an opportunity to put reading centre stage in schools, creating an energy and excitement around reading which has the potential to materially improve the lives of everyone involved.’
The schools taking part in this fantastic project are Hesters Way, Nailsworth Primary, Cirencester Kingshill, Sir William Romney, St Mary’s, Willow Primary, and Callowell Primary.
Phil Smith is the Head of English at Cirencester Kingshill School,
‘All of us at Cirencester Kingshill are thrilled to be involved in the Brilliant Bookshop Experience through National Book Tokens and Read for Good.
It is such a wonderful, generous project, allowing students to independently select a book that piques their individual tastes and interests. We wholeheartedly believe that reading for pleasure has huge benefits to our students’ academic ambitions, their ability to empathise with others, and their emotional well-being; we hope that for some of our students, this project might just be the spark that ignites a lifelong love of reading. We would like to thank National Book Tokens and Read for Good for involving Cirencester Kingshill in such an ambitious, important and joyful experience.’
The book tokens have been kindly designed by Sarah McIntyre, a British-American illustrator and writer of children’s books and comics.
