The Children's Book Project is on a mission to tackle book poverty - gifting donated books to communities across the UK so that every child can enjoy a shared book at bedtime and can find themselves in the characters in a book.

In 2024-2025 school year they gave 1 million pre-loved and surplus books to families via schools, food banks, women's refuges and prisons, along with resources for each of these settings to put on mini book 'festivals'. Over 200k children will be given the chance to browse and choose books they feel excited about and want to share at home.

The charity works in 30 prisons, including two women's prisons: HMP Styal and HMP Peterborough. In England and Wales, children can typically stay with their mothers in prison until they are 18 months old in a mother and baby unit, though in exceptional circumstances this can be extended to 24 months. After this period, children are usually placed with a family member or in foster care, with social services involved in the process. After this age they are much less likely to see their mother, sometimes due to logistical difficulties in making the visit but more commonly because the mother wants their child not to be exposed to the prison environment or to see their parent in prison. This has huge impacts on both the mother and the child.

Your donations will help fund Pop Up Bookshop events run by family liaison officers at each of these prisons, where 300+ mothers will be able to choose as-new books to post to their children along with a handwritten letter, and to do so on a repeat basis. If they wish, they can take two copies of a book: one to post and one to keep one for themselves to share with their child during scheduled telephone calls. Where mothers have less day to day insight into their child's life, books provide a light-hearted platform for conversation, whilst paired books allow mothers in prison to read their child a bedtime story each night.

Absolutely every donation makes a difference to the charity, which makes maximum use of volunteers, donated books and support in kind to ensure the impact of every £1 donated.

Liberty Venn

Children's Book Project