We partner with primary school teaching teams to design, build, decorate and help run their lending libraries. Our focus is doing this properly — from the initial scoping all the way through launch and ongoing operation — so children in areas of book poverty get lasting access to high quality books.
The problem
Many children in areas of book poverty don't have books at home and aren't read to. They go on to become parents who, in turn, don't read to their own children. Access to high quality literature should be the right of every child.
1 in 7 state primary schools in the UK do not have a library. That rises to 1 in 4 in the most disadvantaged communities.
Ref: Primary School Library Alliance (2022), Working together towards a library in every primary school.
Reading for pleasure is a more powerful factor in life achievement than socio-economic background — and matters more for children's cognitive development than their parents' level of education.
Ref: Sullivan and Brown, 2013.
Book access for all
Every child should have access to good quality current literature. In areas of book poverty, the best way to deliver that is by building lending libraries inside primary schools.
“The new library is an outstanding achievement and has the potential to transform opportunities for local school pupils.”
Seema Malhotra
MP, Heston and Feltham
What we deliver
Working alongside the school leadership team, we design, build, stock and launch the library — then stay in touch to help them keep it running well. We also engage parents, carers and the wider school community so they feel involved with the books their children bring home.
We source books through several channels, in priority order:
A library is more than shelves of books — it's a safe space, somewhere children want to be, somewhere to read and be read to. We help source and install the furniture, decorate the room and set up the library system to create an inviting, high quality environment.
Our work doesn't stop on launch day. We help train the staff, librarians and children, regularly visit our completed libraries, review progress and share best practice between projects so each library genuinely makes a difference.