This project has been set up as an opportunity for the people of Brighton and Hove to work together to create an amazing space where books and reading can be celebrated by children across the city. With the persistent challenge of diverting our children’s attention away from the technological world to the joy of reading and all the positive benefits that reading for pleasure has to offer, there is an exciting new project that you can help get off the ground.

The Every Child a Reader team, in conjunction with Moulsecoomb Primary School, Luna Projects and local community groups have an exciting idea to increase the number of children in the Moulsecoomb area and across the city of Brighton and Hove regularly reading for pleasure. This project would be a joint community venture to create a magical and stimulating central hub for children’s literature and reading in the heart of Moulsecoomb, within the city. We are hoping to transform the existing school library at Moulsecoomb Primary School into a magical woodland setting and by doing so we would hope to be able to encourage more local families and those from outside of the vicinity to come along to a rich calendar of events promoting children’s literature and reading.

It is widely supported by current research that reading for pleasure greatly increases children’s overall academic achievement and subsequent life chances. Reading enjoyment is more important for children’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic status and therefore reading for pleasure could be an important way to combat social exclusion and raise educational standards.

We know many of the city’s children don’t have books at home or access the local libraries regularly. Recent research says that 1 in 8 children living in disadvantage don’t have a single book at home and children who own a book are 15 times more likely to read above the level expected for their age (National Literacy Survey Dec 2017). We believe this project would begin to address this inequality.

The library space is located within the school and therefore it is on the daily route to and from school making it easy and convenient to access for local families. It also has an external access which would enable the space to be used outside of school hours for events opened up to a wider city-wide audience.

We are lucky to have a local designer Rob Demal of Luna Projects leading the project (Featured on Channel Four’s George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces). We have also already got a few local community groups set and ready to begin helping out. The space will be using sustainably sourced wood and upcycled materials to create magical spaces to read in groups or alone and will also include a performance space.

We are hoping we will be able to greatly reduce the cost through charitable donations and use of volunteers but we will need to raise a minimum £3800 to make this flagship reading space happen for the City’s children and ensure it is built to the highest standards of craftsmanship and safety.