Done! And filled in for what my opinion is worth (as a children's book enthusiast for my god kids). I talk to so many parents who just give kids the books THEY read as children...finding the new stuff remains hard!
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That’s exactly it. And getting the thoughts of friends/relatives, who are often the ones doing the buying, is so important. We know kids often find choosing books tricky so the more we can support the gatekeepers to choose a wider selection of great books the better. Thanks for your help!
It's often people I would assume would know how to find out about new books, they still go back to old classics/favourites etc. I think time is a big issue - no time to do ANY research, never mind even surface layer research.
I find it hard to keep up and I don’t have any actual children to be parenting! 😅 I think it’s the same for some teachers - they are so pressed for time and if they’re not readers beyond the classroom it’s easier to default back to Dahl/Morpurgo/etc than create new everything for unfamiliar texts.
I find it hard to keep up and keep up and it’s my main hobby, as well as part of my job! It’s understandable that many teachers go back to familiar texts they’ve taught before and have loads of resources for. But with reading for pleasure falling off a cliff we all need to do more where we can.
Many authors write/or would write additional teaching materials to support their texts. Would this be helpful for teachers? Or does this squash the reading for pleasure principle? How are class texts selected? Many author friends support this with additional materials, including paid school visits.
Supporting teachers to diversify their class texts and supporting kids to read more for pleasure are both important. And I’m sure anything we can do to help with both is appreciated by incredibly busy teachers.
My constant is to send parents and colleagues to @thereaderteacher.bsky.social between the lists, blogs and YouTube channel there's so much and I've had a number of parents find it useful. I've also been known to tell random parents in bookshops about him too while chatting #UKKidLit
That’s it. And obviously as book charity part of what we want/need to do is to make that easier for folk. There’s so much being published and it’s understandable that kids and adults alike often don’t know where to start.
So, even if they can find new stuff they dont want their kids to read it? God, that's a bleaker wrinkle, but now I think about it, so often happens when kids find books THEY like (comics often)
Sadly so common with comics. The idea that they're easy to read (often not true) and 'not real reading'
Some of the best Summer Reading Challenge fun I ever had with kids was drawing our own comics. Loads of literacy challenge there! Literacy is more than words
I’m lucky as the bookish auntie that I follow lots of children’s authors, and can come up with ideas of books their parents and grandparents wouldn’t think of. I got asked to set up a wish list with ideas for my oldest nephew by his parents for this reason!
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Some of the best Summer Reading Challenge fun I ever had with kids was drawing our own comics. Loads of literacy challenge there! Literacy is more than words