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Enthusiasm
about reading can be infectious, and how better to spread
the word than to get your whole town, city or local authority reading?
Here are some examples of how people are getting everyone
involved. To read more about local authority wide literacy initiatives and strategies visit the Family Reading Campaign Or for a national initiative read 'Seven books for seven cities'
Is yours a reading city or town? Let us know - email
nayna.wood@literacytrust.org.uk
or call 020 7820 6255. |
Seven books for seven cities to celebrate 70 years of Penguin
Penguin is 70 this year. A key part of our celebrations will be to support seven cities reading seven Penguin books to celebrate each decade of Penguin's existence.
Penguin was the first publisher to bring the city-wide-read idea to the UK - in 2002 the city of Leeds read Patrick Suskind's Perfume, and last year the whole Thames area came together to read Jerome K. Jerome's
Three Men in a Boat in the Great Thames Read. Penguin has also worked with Creative Bristol on their campaigns to get Bristol reading Treasure Island, The Day of the Triffids and Helen Dunmore's The Siege.
This is predominantly a joint initiative between Penguin and the library sector, continuing the publisher's ongoing support of libraries. Penguin has been approached by the various cities and regions to help develop community reading and literacy initiatives by everyone in the city reading the same book. Each city will buy copies of the books from Penguin to distribute to schools, businesses and libraries, but books will be on sale in the retail sector too, with a birthday discount. The promotion is also aimed at reading groups - Penguin was the first publisher to establish a website aimed at reading groups, www.penguin.co.uk/readers, and now has 6000 members. In a recent article in Publishing News it was described as "the best readers' group website online". There are now over 50,000 members of reading groups in the UK.
The cities are:
Bristol - Helen Dunmore's The Siege
Oxford - Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (This book is, famously, set in Oxford)
Brighton - Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland & Alice Through the Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll is said to have got inspiration for the rabbit hole from a small underground tunnel running down to the sea in Brighton)
Nottingham - DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (Lawrence was from Nottinghamshire and 2005 is the 75th anniversary of his death
Northamptonshire - H.E. Bates' Fair Stood the Wind for France
Hull - Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Hull chose this book because it has the biggest aquarium in Europe)
Kirklees, West Yorkshire - Lion Boy by Zizou Corder (This was chosen because it's a strong crossover book for both adults and children and brings a family reading angle to the programme. A year-long rolling programme of Kirklees-wide, cross-art-form events involving musicians, artists, rappers, poets and dancers will deepen readers' experience of Lion Boy)
Penguin will provide each city with posters and leaflets and authors where possible to do events. Information about the scheme can be found on the penguin Readers Group website www.penguin.co.uk/readers and the main Penguin website www.penguin.co.uk. For more information email readers@penguin.co.uk
The Hull City Read: Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea was chosen by the city council because of the city's sea-faring heritage as well as visitor attractions including The Deep and the Hull Maritime Museum. The city council has bought 2,500 copies of the book to offer to residents in a move to help improve literacy levels among children and adults. The books will be available from the city's 11 libraries and the city's main visitor attractions.
Nottingham reads Lady Chatterley's Lover: Lady Chatterley was one of the most controversial books of the twentieth century. Many people have heard of it but how many have actually read it? Will it still shock or will it be tame in comparison to current attitudes? It is now seventy-five years since his death, so how relevant still is his attitude to class struggle, the working class, and the portrayal of sex? Going underground! Brighton and Hove burrows into the most curious book of the 19th century: Between March and May, The Word in collaboration with Brighton Festival and other local organizations, is encouraging the whole city to read the first children's book with a crossover appeal to adults - Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland. Carroll was a frequent visitor to Brighton from 1864 to 1887, staying with his old Christ Church friend the Reverend Henry Barclay at 11 Sussex Square and, in 1887 he watched the stage version of Alice being performed at the Theatre Royal. For further information about The City Reads please contact: sarah.hutchings@brighton-festival.org.uk. See also:
www.thewordproject.info, http://www.brightonfestival.org/
www.journeystowonderland.net The Kirklees City Read: Lionboy by Zizou Corder: Imagine exploring the world through a book. Imagine waking up and you're in another land, in another place where you speak another language? Lionboy takes you to other places to meet other people; it is a journey, a quest and most of all it is gripping, fun and exciting. This is the perfect book for children and their parent/s/carers to share together. Will you be part of the journey?
The book is your ticket to a yearlong programme of arts events involving dancers, musicians, rappers, storytellers and visual artists, which will be taking place through out Kirklees to celebrate and explore themes in Lionboy. Anyone who is reading the book will be welcome to come along.
If you want to know more about how to get your hands on a copy of the book or how to get involved in the arts events you can find more information at: www.kirklees.gov.uk or call or email: rommi.smith@kirklees.gov.uk
The Great Oxford Read: Oxford is reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited - written in 1945 and famously set in the city, where the author was an undergraduate. The city wide read project is a partnership between the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, Oxfordshire Libraries and Penguin Books.
Many events will be held around the city to celebrate the Great Oxford Read.: Local author John Mortimer, who wrote the screenplay for Brideshead Revisited will be launching the Great Oxford Read at the Penguin Readers Day on 10 April 2005. Copies of Brideshead Revisited will be available in local libraries or bookshops with a special birthday discount of £2.
Northamptonshire read H.E. Bates' Fair Stood the Wind for France: A new edition of this book will be published for the first time in Penguin Modern Classics to tie in with this promotion. The new edition will be published on 7 April 2005. Launch mid April, finish 16th May on Bates's birthday. This year is Bates's centenary year and he was from Northamptonshire.
We currently don't have any initiatives listed in this area.
We are reading IN Salford
Salford’s enthusiasm for 2008’s National Year of Reading is so great it has launched its flagship project already. 10,000 copies of Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo- award-winning author and former Children's Laureate- are starting to be circulated across the city for people of all ages to pick up, read and pass on.
The aim of We are reading IN Salford, which will run until March 2008, is to get as many people in the city reading and talking about reading as possible. Those who read the book will be encouraged to give their feedback either online by visiting www.salford.gov.uk/wearereading or via special post boxes before passing it on or leaving it where somebody else can pick it up. Each book has its own code which, if submitted along with comments, will allow its journey to be traced.
The official launch of We are reading IN Salford was marked at The Lowry arts centre, Salford Quays to coincide with a four-night run of the stage version of Private Peaceful. On his visit to Salford, Michael Morpurgo also talked to 500 Salford primary school children about a number of his books and how he goes about writing them.
Said Cllr John Warmisham, Salford City Council's lead member for children's services: "This project is about getting those who already enjoy reading to be part of a unique shared experience and encouraging those who may not read often, or at all, to discover the joy of reading and the emotions and new worlds it can unlock."
Said Michael Morpurgo. "This is such a good idea, and I'm honoured, thrilled and, as they say 'over the moon' that Private Peaceful has been chosen by Salford. It's important too for the history of Salford. A lot of Salford men went to that terrible war. A lot went, and many never came back. They're lying out there in France or Belgium. A lot of Salford families grieved. I just hope the book resonates with the people of Salford, of all ages."
Liverpool- What Was Here
WhatwasHere.com in Liverpool aims to tell history like it's never been told before: by the people who live in Liverpool and know it best. Everyone knows something about the past, whether it happened yesterday, 20 years ago or 500 years ago. Whatwashere.com wants people to contribute what they know, however big or small.
The website is a pilot for whatwasHere.com, funded by NESTA (the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts). We are working in Liverpool with the Liverpool Library Service and a wide range of community organisations.
Visit www.whatwashere.com
Liverpool Gets into Reading
The University of Liverpool's outreach unit, The Reader, is running a reading and social inclusion project - Get Into Reading, which is setting up weekly reading groups in disadvantaged areas of the Wirral, Merseyside, and changing peoples lives with books.
You can view The Reader unit website at www.thereader.co.uk/
For further information on the project visit www.getintoreading.org or contact Project Director, Jane Davis, on 0151 794 2830 or via email at jane.davis@liv.ac.uk.
We currently don't have any initiatives listed in this area.
Newspaper campaign to get Nottingham reading
The Nottingham Evening Post launched a campaign, Let's Read, to improve literacy and get people across the city reading together. The campaign aims to show people of all levels and from different backgrounds that reading can be fun - and can make a profound difference to their lives. Evidence highlights that reading and writing skills in Nottingham are not as good as they should be. It shows that poor levels of these skills are deeply bound to social deprivation - but also that they can be used as a powerful weapon to fight it.
The campaign will target parents and carers, those with babies and young children through to teenagers, those with emerging literacy and adult readers. Using a raft of free give-aways and special offers Let's Read will aim to:
- Increase active library membership from 24.1% to 26% of the city’s total population
- Increase annual visitor numbers to libraries by 9% to 1.4 million.
For more information visit www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=241274&command=newPage
(This is Nottingham, 17 July 2007)
Oswestry Reads
Oswestry Library and Shropshire County Council set up their city-wide reading initiative, Oswestry Reads, in celebration of the opening of a new public library and for the National Year of Reading. They have asked the entire town to vote for their favourite read from a shortlist of five books, with the winning title revealed on World Book Day. Multiple copies of the winning title will be distributed to venues right across Oswestry - a combination of copies to borrow and also non-stock copies to place in locations such as surgeries, coffee shops, offices in the town. There will also be a range of events and activities related to the 'Oswestry Reads' book, such as setting up reading groups.
The campaign has created a real buzz in the town, helped along by the fact that the library invited local organisations to 'champion' individual titles. Local secondary schools are promoting Framed and Private Peaceful, while Oswestry Youth Cafe is backing Prince Caspian. Oswestry Town Council is focusing on Carrie's War, while The Seeing Stone has the local tertiary college and tourist attraction Whittington Castle right behind it.
The Marches secondary school is championing Framed which has been read by the pupils and staff. The school library has staged a display, a voting box is in place on the school reception desk and details are on the school's website. Each class is due to vote during afternoon tutor sessions over a week.
Oswestry School is championing Private Peaceful and has a display. Pupils and the headmaster are reading the book and it is featured on the school's website.
Walford and North Shropshire College is championing The Seeing Stone and has a display in the library, plus a voting prompt on the plasma screen in reception. The college principal has read the book.
Local tourist attraction, Whittington Castle, is also championing
The Seeing Stone and
is hosting an exhibition and voting box for us. A half-term club at the session will feature the book as its theme for activities.
Oswestry Youth Cafe is championing
Prince Caspian. Library staff have visited the cafe to read extracts from the books and a voting box, plus website voting prompts, are in place. Young people are designing a logo for the campaign
The local newspaper, the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertizer, is highlighting one title per week and each book has been read and reviewed by one of the newspaper's reporters. Each 'champion' organisation has featured in a weekly slot in our local newspaper, providing recommendations/photo shots of their book. The newspaper's website features an online poll for the shortlisted book - anyone registering a vote can then see what percentage of the vote each title currently holds.
Download the Oswestry Reads promotion leaflet (pdf 93 KB)
Ledbury Readers' Group commissions best-selling author Ledbury Readers' Group in Herefordshire has commissioned its own short story directly from a top novelist, as part of a scheme run by the West Midlands Readers' Network.
Wanting a change from reading the usual books offered to readers' groups, the Ledbury Readers' Group jumped at the chance to tell a writer just what they wanted in a good story. Through the West Midlands Readers' Network they got in touch with top novelist and screenplay writer David Nobbs, who agreed to write them a short story to order. The group asked that the story be humorous, with an eccentric character and a strong, conclusive ending.
The story that David Nobbs has written, Piercing Arrows, is a comic portrait of a love affair set within the heady worlds of professional darts and philosophy. David Nobbs is best known as creator of TV character Reginald Perrin and writer of hit TV series 'Love on a Branchline'.
The West Midlands Readers' Network is working with other local readers' groups to commission new writing over the next two years. The Network is funded by Arts Council England West Midlands and local library authorities. It is managed by Book Communications. For more details please contact Jonathan Davidson on 0121 246 2770, email: jonathan@bookcommunications.co.uk
The Ledbury Readers' Group can by contacted via Brenda Read-Brown, Herefordshire County Council's Reader and Literature Development Officer, 01432 260646, email: bread-brown@herefordshire.gov.uk
Manningtree Reading Together
Essex Libraries, The Manningtree Festival and Penguin Books worked in partnership from May - June 2005 to promote reading in the community. Essex Libraries provided stock, staff and expertise, location for the events and contact with reading groups. Manningtree Festival provided publicity through their promotional leaflet and a box office facility. Penguin Books provided 20 free copies of The Sea House - and the author.
20 free copies from Penguin Books - 10 were given out to reading groups, 10 were put into Essex Libraries bags, along with Essex Libraries publicity and placed in various shops and teashops in the town. There was an invitation in the bag for people to read the book and then pass it on - by leaving it somewhere else for someone to pick up or by passing it on to a friend.
Staff took photo's of people reading the book in unusual places - the tanning parlour, the tattoo parlour, the bakers, as well as builders at a local landmark, the window cleaner and a man passing by on a bike. These were then put on display in the library. They created a great deal of discussion - with some people visiting the library specifically to see them.
The library Manager appeared on the Festival Radio Station which runs for the period of the Manningtree Festival to talk about Manningtree Library and Manningtree Reading Together. The town also held three events with authors and writers. These were held in primary schools and libraries in the town.
One Book for Stevenage
Stevenage-based author Ken Follett has teamed up with Macmillan and Ottaker's to launch a "One Book for Stevenage" campaign. Inspired by the city reading schemes run in Bristol and Liverpool, Follett got backing from Ottaker's Stevenage branch and his local council to launch a similar campaign. Lian Hearn's 'Across the Nightingale Floor', was selected by a panel chaired by Ottakar's Stevenage manager Libby Shaw. The book is being sold in the local Ottaker's store, library and Sainsbury's for £2.99. Publisher Macmillan donated 700 copies to local schools.
(Bookseller, 22 April 2005)
Assisting Berkshire Children (ABC) To Read
ABC to read is a charity whose mission it is to engage children who are struggling to read. ABC to read volunteers help children find the fun in reading, and discover that they can do it. The volunteers visit primary schools in Berkshire twice a week and give individual mentoring support to 3 children for half an hour each. They read to and with the children as well as playing games, doing crossword puzzles and enjoying conversation and other literacy based activities.
Contact: telephone: 0118 9511336, e-mail: abctoread@btconnect.com , website: www.abctoread.org.uk
Cranbrook celebrates children's writing
The Cranbrook Big Write, is an anthology of short stories written by the children of Cranbrook. The book includes stories by children aged 4 years to 18 years from Cranbrook Primary School, Angley School and Cranbrook School.
Christine Newman, Librarian at Cranbrook School and one of the organisers of the project says: "The Cranbrook Big Write is a natural follow on to the Cranbrook Big Read published in 2004. This time we have provided the opportunity for young people to read the short stories written by their friends and peers."
For full details of this community celebration of writing, contact Christine Newman at newmanc@cranbrook.kent.sch.uk.
South West great reading adventure
The 2006 South West Great Reading Adventure took place for 80 days from 5 January 2006 and built on the success of the first three Bristol reading adventures. The Bristol reading adventures were started in 2003 by Creative Bristol (a partnership of Arts Council, Business West and Bristol City Council).
For 2006, Bristol and the South West were reading Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. From Swindon to Penzance, and Gloucester to Plymouth, tens of thousands of people are expected to participate.
In addition to the thousands of copies of the book distributed free of charge, readers were able to obtain a fully illustrated guide, which provides the history of the book and author. And all ages can take part with a specially written and illustrated children's version available. Key details were:
- Over 40,000 copies of Around the World in Eighty Days will be distributed free of charge in the South West.
- Over 50,000 copies of a specially commissioned and illustrated children's version will be distributed free of charge.
- Over 50,000 copies of a 52 page full-colour guide will be distributed free of charge.
- All 15 library authorities in the South West are participating.
- Over 80 schools in Bristol and 70 in Swindon have already joined in the project.
For more information about the 2008 South West Great Reading Adventure visit the website
http://www.bristolreads.com
We currently don't have any initiatives listed in this area.
An initiative in the City of Aberdeen has secured funds to convert a single decker bus into a mobile learning resource that will work with cross-agency partners. The aim of the project is to raise achievement in literacy, particularly in areas of high social deprivation, by working with families as a learning unit. The Reading Bus is driving to: promote reading as a source of life long pleasure; raise attainment and achievement of children at risk of early failure; encourage family learning in a non-school environment; and involve and empower parents in their children's learning. The pilot project began in August 2006 in St Machar Community and was rolled out across the remainder of the City. For more information visit www.aberdeen-education.org.uk/readingbus/Drive/DriveHomeC.asp
One Book One City - Edinburgh
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure 'Kidnapped' was chosen as Edinburgh's Book of the City in 2005. Ten thousand copies of the novel were distributed free across Edinburgh in cafes, train stations or even taxis, with a sticker saying "I'm free, take me home and read me", in an effort to get the entire city reading a single text. The project, called One Book One City, was officially launched in Spring 2006. The reading plan is billed as the flagship of Edinburgh's status as UNESCO City of Literature.
Several versions of the tale will be on offer - from a simplified version for children to a 'Kidnapped' comic book. Edinburgh City Libraries have pledged to stock extra copies. It is set to become an annual project, but 'Kidnapped' was described as the easy choice over other candidates that included Irvine Welsh's 'Trainspotting', set among Leith drug addicts, and Muriel Spark's classic Edinburgh story 'The prime of Miss Jean Brodie". 2008's book was Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, for more information, visit www.cityofliterature.com/ecol.aspx?sec=6&pid=215
(Scotsman, 20 June 2005)
Read to Succeed
Read to Succeed is a Belfast literacy initiative which enables students from the local college, many of whom are parents, to share and enjoy books and stories with children in schools. It is a unique partnership between adult education and support and advisory services to schools. It is not only the children who benefit from this approach. The focus is to develop in adults the skills of story telling and reading and increase confidence as well as helping children to enjoy reading.
Newspaper Reading Week in Belfast
The Belfast Telegraph Reading Week was launched in May 2005 in schools across the city. Thousands of young people were issued with their daily copy of the Belfast Telegraph as well as a four-page tabloid of newspaper activities. The tabloid has been designed to take pupils right through all aspects of the newspaper, from stories to advertising. Jennifer O'Reilly, Newspapers in Education Executive at the Belfast Telegraph, said: "It is great to see so many schools taking part in our fourth Newspaper Reading Week in Belfast.
"The main aim of the week is to give children the opportunity to familiarise themselves with a newspaper…. Pupils get a lot of pleasure out of working with them - reading through them, cutting out, pasting pictures and writing their own advertisements and reports. At the same time they are developing their reading skills and knowledge of language, and increasing their awareness of what is going on in the world around them. The message is that reading can be fun as well as educational."
(Belfast Telegraph, 25 May 2005)
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