The Bookseller.com

6th July 2009

Caroline Horn

Caroline Horn is The Bookseller's Children's News editor. She will be blogging on issues and events in the children's book world.

Making one year of reading last a decade

23.08.07

The latest Children's Bookseller supplement highlights the upcoming National Year of Reading (NYR) in 2008 – for which the National Literacy Trust and the Reading Agency have just been appointed the managing partners. The first NYR, which took place a decade ago, was judged a success, but a bit ‘worthy’.

This time around, the NLT promises a few more surprises and a year that is more fun for everyone. This will be one of its first challenges – not the fun bit, but getting more adults involved in reading activities and making this NYR less child-focused. Leading on ‘the family’, as the NLT promises, may go some way to doing this – but what about adults who don’t have children?

The greatest challenge, however, will be in creating a lasting legacy for NYR 08. A decade ago, one of the main NYR initiatives was to pour millions (some £23m) into stocking school libraries. As soon as the funding was over, schools promptly stopped spending on library books. The trade took a hit for a good year or two and many schools simply got out of the habit of putting funding aside for their libraries.

Getting publishers and the retail trade more involved in next year’s NYR should go some way into addressing both these challenges. Retailers are the conduit to the consumer world on the high street. They know what ‘works’ in marketing terms for both child and adult readers. They need to be part of the network of organisations involved in promoting NYR.

Publishers, meanwhile, have a wish-list of objectives that could go some way to helping create a national reading culture in the UK, for both adults and children. That wish-list starts with a statutory requirement for a library in every school and moves on to dedicated funding for books in both schools and public libraries.

There are many more ideas out there. It would be good to see the whole industry getting behind a campaign for one major initiative that makes NYR 08 a year that we all remember.