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Mackenzie Crook has been nominated for a prestigious book prize for his debut children’s novel The Windvale Sprites. The 40-year-old, who played Gareth in TV sitcom The Office and has starred in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films, wrote and illustrated The Windvale Sprites, which is the tale of a young boy who sets out [...]

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The fall from fashion of vampire romance and fantasy in favour of more gritty reads is nowhere more evident than in the teen shortlist for the Waterstones children’s books prize. Divided for the first time into three age categories – picture books, 5-12 and teens – the prize’s young adult section features titles covering a [...]

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Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister, said sustained technological and social advances had failed to eradicate Victorian-style reading and writing problems, particularly in the poorest areas. Speaking on the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth, he said there were “still shadows of Charles Dickens’s world in our own”. The comments come amid mounting concerns that too [...]

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Nick Gibb, the School Minister, said that reading books for just half an hour a day could be worth up to 12 months’ extra schooling by the age of 15. Today, the Department for Education will unveil plans for a national reading competition for children in the last three years of primary education and the [...]

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Schools Minister Nick Gibb has said that children should “always have a book on the go” as he announced plans for a new national reading competition. Youngsters who read for half an hour a day can be up to a year ahead in their schooling by age 15, Mr Gibb suggested. He announced that from [...]

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The government wants to launch a national reading competition in England to encourage a love of books and boost children’s literacy. The contest, for seven- to 12-year-olds, is likely to focus on who can read the most books. Schools Minister Nick Gibb said the aim was “to give a competitive spur to reluctant readers”. But [...]

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When I was 11, I read the Bible cover to cover. I was not precocious, or particularly religious; there were lots of us bored, bookish children in the 1970s. Television was largely rubbish, and our parents’ bookshelves were what was left. I thought of this when I heard author Claire Tomalin complain that children are [...]

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From the orphan begging for more in Oliver Twist to the heartless Ebeneezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens highlighted poverty and squalor. But did he really help change things? It’s an adjective that still echoes down the ages. Need to emphasise the filth and squalor of a rundown housing estate or prison? It’s [...]

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The Schools minister Nick Gibb has great expectations of Britain’s 11-year-olds, singling out Charles Dickens’ classic as one of the books all children should read before they leave primary school. But on the eve of Dickens’ 200th birthday, his biographer has warned that young readers do not have the attention-span to appreciate his work. Claire [...]

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He’s been munching through fruit, cake and sausages for more than 40 years…but children still haven’t lost their appetite for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Eric Carle’s 1969 tale about a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly is the most read children’s book in Britain, a study revealed yesterday. Researchers estimate it is read an average of [...]

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Leading Charles Dickens biographer Claire Tomalin has said children are not being taught to read with the attention span necessary to appreciate the novelist’s works. Tomalin said Dickens’s depiction of an unequal society was still “amazingly relevant”, ahead of nationwide celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth. Children were now unable to appreciate [...]

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Claire Tomalin, the acclaimed biographer, said many pupils had such poor attention spans that they were unable to access books such as Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. Speaking as the country prepares to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, she said his works were still [...]

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Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson has written a poem in protest at planned library closures. The Gruffalo author, who was awarded the MBE last year, has written the poem to mark National Libraries Day (Saturday 4 February) and the 62-year-old writer, who was born in London but lives in Glasgow, said she wanted to make a [...]

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A bespectacled boy magician takes on a malodorous vagrant hero. It could only be the world of children’s books. Now JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and David Walliams’s Mr Stink are part of a battle to be declared the best children’s book of the past decade. Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo and John Grisham are among the [...]

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Q My son, who is 11, loved the television adaptation of Great Expectations which was shown over Christmas, and I am keen to feed his interest with some books. He is too young to read the full-length novels, but I’m hoping you might be able to suggest some abridged versions. Victoria, by email A Unlike [...]

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Schooldchildren from across London are being invited to Selfridges – not to shop, but for reading lessons with a difference. The department store has transformed part of its lower ground-floor Ultralounge into a free pop-up 15,000-book library to inspire a love of literature in adults and children alike. Professional storyteller Rachel Rose Reid is helping [...]

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ames Dawson grew up in West Yorkshire, writing imaginary episodes of Doctor Who. He became a journalist and then a teacher. He now writes full time and his debut novel Hollow Pike, a dark teen thriller, is published by Indigo/Orion. “Whatever your experience, good or bad, I have come to believe that no one ever [...]

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I’m deeply torn by the news that Jacqueline Wilson has written an updated “echo” of Edith Nesbit’s Five Children and It, to be published by Puffin Books in August. I admire Wilson’s writing, and can imagine a writer who adores Nesbit as Wilson does – she wrote the Introduction to Puffin’s 2010 reissue of The [...]

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n the story, a pencil draws a boy, a dog, a cat, a paintbrush (to colour them all in) and lots of other things. Everything is ok until the pencil draws a rubber because he has made a mistake. The rubber starts rubbing everything out! Don’t worry, the pencil sorts it out but I won’t [...]

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A homeless man who teaches other rough sleepers how to read said society should be ashamed at the number of people with literacy problems. Matt Holgate, 41, has taught nine people under a new scheme run by Westminster council which pairs up illiterate people in hostels with a reading coach – either a fellow resident, [...]

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Jacqueline Wilson, 66, is the award-winning children’s author of books such as Girls In Love and Lily Angel. She has sold more than 30 million books in the UK alone and in 2008 she was made a Dame.   I first met Nick about 21 years ago, after I had written The Story of Tracy [...]

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The Evening Standard’s literacy campaign is having a knock-on effect on reading across the capital, experts working on the front line said today. The Get London Reading campaign has sent more than 300 volunteers into schools across the capital to read with children who are falling behind. But figures suggest volunteers are also signing up [...]

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A Birmingham woman who had “issues with language” as child has been appointed the National Storytelling Laureate. Katrice Horsley said: “I would have been classed as a selective mute by today’s standards I suppose.” She said that telling stories became “her salvation” and she planned to make people aware of the importance of storytelling and [...]

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Robert says, “This book was great and I learnt a lot. There should be more pages though. My favourite bits are animals eating poo, making homes in poo and a section called Powerful Poo. The pop up bits looked very good. I don’t have a worst bit as I liked it all. If I have [...]

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Arsenal and England star Theo Walcott has told how he was forced to catch up at school after reading took second place to playing football. Walcott, 22, said he fell behind and did not start reading properly until he was 10. But he has gone on to write four children’s books as well as his [...]

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My Sister Jodie was a brilliant book. Why I say this is because at the end it makes you have two emotions at once. In fact, opposite emotions: sad and happy. Jodie falls out of the tower window and dies. That’s sad. Pearl has a new baby sister. That’s good. That brings me to my [...]

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Children at a school fighting to drive up literacy levels will benefit from one of the most hi-tech libraries in the capital. Pupils at St Mary’s in Battersea, which is at the heart of the Evening Standard’s Get London Reading campaign, have been given the latest ebook readers from Sony. Teachers hope the devices will [...]

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A school on Teesside has enlisted the help of a dog to improve the reading skills of its pupils. Audrey, a three-year-old Italian Spinone, visits Redcar Community College once a week and sits next to the children while they read aloud. She’s registered with the charity, Pets as Therapy, which works with schools, care homes [...]

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Some children with dyslexia go undiagnosed for years, leading to prolonged learning difficulties and children who are angry and frustrated at school. But all that could be a thing of the past. Scientists now say they can identify the reading problem before children even start school, and long before they become labeled as poor students [...]

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This book was originally written in German by a lady who wrote and illustrated lots of books about children, Nature, fairies and spirits. She lived from 1881-1916. She was born in a castle in East Prussia, and she was very beautiful. She studied art and wrote and illustrated many wonderful books. The Snow Children was [...]

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More than a quarter of children aged between 10 and 12 cannot add two small sums of money without using a calculator, a survey has revealed. Youngsters are leaving primary school unable to spell, add or do times tables and their parents do not have the time to help them, new research shows. Around a [...]

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A 12-year-old cancer survivor has written a powerful and emotional letter about his life and death battle to help others with the condition. Charlie Williams was just five when he was diagnosed with medulloblastoma. The killer brain tumour strikes down about 50 children in the UK every year. The brave boy from Boxford in Suffolk, [...]

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Ministers warned that children were being left with poor reading skills because of a refusal to use phonics – the traditional system that breaks down words into individual sounds. Today, the Department for Education named and shamed 10 local councils that have failed to fully adopt a Government-backed phonics programme, even though many pupils in [...]

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Ministers warned that children were being left with poor reading skills because of a refusal to use phonics – the traditional system that breaks down words into individual sounds. Today, the Department for Education named and shamed 10 local councils that have failed to fully adopt a Government-backed phonics programme, even though many pupils in [...]

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I bristle whenever a politician makes a prescription for better, more hands-on parenting. At 7.30 on any given evening, am I in the Commons, dozing? Nope, I’m at home, with a bottle of milk in one hand and a corkscrew in the other. Already, I am a better parent than the whole damn lot of [...]

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“I blame that Adrian Mole,” said my sea-scout master Roger. “Boys weren’t obsessed with the length of their things before reading that awful book.” Of course Roger was wrong. Boys have always been obsessed with the length of their things. Somehow, a lady called Sue Townsend understood what it was to be an adolescent boy [...]

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All children under five in care in London should be sent a free book a month to boost their reading and prospects later in life, the Commons was being told today. Senior Labour MP John Healey urged Mayor Boris Johnson and his Labour challenger Ken Livingstone to back the Imagination Library scheme, already running in [...]

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It’s no wonder Quentin Blake is one of Britain’s most interesting and best-loved illustrators. The man whose work graced Roald Dahl’s books – and the BFG is 30 years old now – has a new exhibition which is ambitious, intrepid and joyful. As Large As Life, which opened today at the Foundling Museum in Holborn, [...]

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Now Disney versions of the British children’s classic have been criticised for being error strewn and for having Americanisms inserted to appeal to a wider audience. Linda Weeks, a mother and librarian, said to have noticed the errors creeping into the new editions of the Pooh books with Eeyore once quoted as saying, “I’ve gotten [...]

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Q My son is 11 years old, and attends an English-language school in Spain. He used to be an enthusiastic reader when he was younger, but I am now finding it difficult to engage him with books. There are so many distractions from other media, and I fear my efforts to inspire and cajole him [...]

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It’s no wonder Quentin Blake is one of Britain’s most interesting and best-loved illustrators. The man whose work graced Roald Dahl’s books – and the BFG is 30 years old now – has a new exhibition which is ambitious, intrepid and joyful. As Large As Life, which opened today at the Foundling Museum in Holborn, [...]

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When Ben Hatch and his wife Dinah were asked to write a guidebook about family travel they naively imagined spending whole days licking ice lollies at zoos and aquariums, and ignored friends’ warnings about spending five months away with their two small children (Charlie, aged one, and Phoebe, three). Their subsequent 8,000-mile journey around Britain [...]

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Strictly Come Dancing star Kara Tointon today backed the Evening Standard’s literacy campaign saying children are not getting enough help with reading. The 28-year-old actress was diagnosed with dyslexia at seven and battled to overcome the condition and learn to read confidently. Today she threw her weight behind our Get London Reading campaign, saying the [...]

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‘I would highly recommend it to all children, it is definitely a must read’ It is not every day that one comes across mythology written by a child. This is no ordinary book. It is a long and beautifully told tale that captures the excitement and strangeness of the ancient Indian epic of gods and [...]

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The fast food chain will give out 9 million Mudpuddle Farm books, written by Michael Morpurgo, over the next four weeks, after it signed a tie-up with the publisher Harper Collins. In 2011, sales of children’s books averaged 1.16 million per week – 6.4 million in a four week period – which means that McDonald’s [...]

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Children’s author Jacqueline Wilson has dedicated her latest book to a talented young writer who died from cancer at the age of eight. Wilson, writer of the popular Tracy Beaker books, met Molly Field shortly before the girl’s death. Molly, who was treated at Great Ormond Street hospital, helped raise thousands for charity by writing [...]

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Quentin Blake’s famous illustrations of The Twits, Matilda and Fantastic Mr Fox all feature on a new series of stamps from the Royal Mail, issued to celebrate the work of Roald Dahl. Out from tomorrow, the stamps also show James and the Giant Peach and The Witches, while a triumphant Charlie Bucket from Charlie and [...]

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Pupils at the Evening Standard’s adopted primary school have taken up poetry as part of the campaign to boost literacy levels. Classrooms at St Mary’s in Battersea became writing workshops for a poetry day – the latest step in our efforts to help transform the struggling school, where half the pupils fail to achieve the [...]

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I don’t think I can predict what impact apps will have on developing a love of reading but I do think that right now they are an exciting way in which children can access good stories and particularly good illustrations. Original apps or the app version of a familiar book look and feels different from [...]

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A generation is being robbed of the chance to read children’s classics because of poor levels of literacy in primary schools, a senior minister warned yesterday. Schools Minister Nick Gibb said primary pupils were unable  to enjoy books such as Harry  Potter and the Narnia series because they ‘haven’t learnt to read properly’. Mr Gibb [...]

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