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Cressida Cowell, the Waterstones Children’s Laureate, says she tries to make her books “look like sweets” with “glinting covers” in order to make reading feel exciting for children.
Speaking at The Bookseller’s Children’s Conference on 23rd September about her Life Changing Libraries programme, she said: “I'm fighting against the best telly, the best film ever” and added that it was important to make sure reading didn’t feel like “an old-fashioned thing” or “something school-y".
She emphasised that reading for joy improves life chances, regardless of a child’s socioeconomic background, but pointed out that if parents can’t afford books, or a child doesn’t have a library in their primary school, it is very difficult for them to become a reader to pleasure.
Currently, one in eight primary schools don’t have a library, and children on free school meals are twice as likely to be in a school without a library. “It just isn’t fair,” she said.
Earlier this year Cowell partnered with organisations such as World Book Day, the National Literacy Trust, BookTrust, Seven Stories, CILIP and the School Library Association to ask the government for £100m a year ringfenced for libraries to help schools afford books.
Catherine Millar, former assistant headteacher and reading consultant at BookTrust, said even schools with libraries often "rely on the books that were published in 1960 that have inaccurate facts", and said it was important to be able to buy new ones that will engage children and encourage them to read more.
She also said it was important to think about the space and design of a library to ensure they are an “exciting and joyful place for children to be in”, and that teachers are knowledgeable about books and where they can find them to help foster a love of reading among pupils.
“The library can be a really overwhelming place for a child who doesn’t have books at home or who doesn’t know who their favourite author is, who doesn’t know their favourite genre, who hasn’t been read to. It can be a very difficult place to be for some children, so the teachers need to really be able to show that expertise and model how to be a reader. Children need to have that adult holding their hand,” she said.
It is also important to work with the whole school community, including parents, to overturn negative attitudes about reading being “difficult” and get children into good routines, she said.