Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. Fingers crossed you'll take the time to donate some money to my chosen cause too. 

 

The National Literacy Trust is an independent charity that works to transform lives through literacy. The NLT strongly believe that literacy really can alter lives - their research supports the argument that, with good literacy skills, people are happier, more successful and more likely to contribute to society. As a result, they support children, young people and adults through a range of projects. Check out their website at the link above for more information.

 

So that's why I'm hoping you'll support them and, in return, I'm going to carry out a children's book reading challenge.

 

The idea stems from a discussion I had with a group of secondary Heads of English about the challenge of keeping up to date with the latest publications for children. Ten years ago, when I was offered my place on the teacher training course I took, one of the pre-course tasks was to read three children's novels and produce a written review of each. We also had to provide some ideas for how we might use them in our teaching. I continued to read a wide range of children's literature whilst teaching, but the number of books I was reading lessened each year. A number of the other Heads of English reported a similar sense - that their own reading of children's books had been in decline - though they were able to share a range of very intelligent strategies which they developed to help children access recommendations, many of which revolved around their excellent school librarians.

 

So, I'm setting myself a challenge. My intention is to read twenty six children's books over the course of a year - one for each letter of the alphabet, based on the surname of the author. I'm not very athletic and think that I'd be more adept at this than taking part in a triathlon or running a marathon or something other fit people do for charity (the number 26 seems more appropriate now if I think about it like that). So that it's more of a challenge, the books will all have to be at least 100 pages in length. I'll then write a post for each book on this blog. Hopefully I'll discover some interesting authors whose work I haven't read before. Hopefully someone else will find what I write helpful.

 

Even if neither of these things occur, then perhaps you can make the whole thing worthwhile by donating some money.