With our partner Lancôme, we’ve launched our audiobook club, Behind the Cover, for young women aged 16+.
In response to school and college closures across the UK, Behind the Cover uses audiobooks from celebrated women writers to support young women’s literacy and wellbeing at home. The books will explore a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences and themes relevant to young women today, to help them navigate this uncertain time.
Our research review shows that audiobooks can benefit young people’s reading skills, mental wellbeing and emotional intelligence. They are easy to access during a time when physical books are out of reach for many people.
Young women will receive a free audiobook, access to exclusive author content, and engaging activities to help start a conversation about the book. They will also be encouraged to submit a book review. We’ll publish a selection of reviews each month on our website.
Our first Behind the Cover title is 2019 Booker Prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other (Penguin Audio) by Bernardine Evaristo. The book explores themes of identity, race and womanhood in modern Britain.
In an exclusive video, Evaristo takes readers Behind the Cover of her award-winning book.
Reading about different places and adventure when I was growing up opened the world to me. Yet I was always frustrated that black British women weren’t visible in the books I read, which is why I wanted to tell the stories of as many black British women as possible in ‘Girl, Woman, Other’, spanning different ages, classes, backgrounds and experiences. I am delighted that so many young women will get the chance to listen to ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ through the National Literacy Trust and Lancôme’s brand new audiobook club. Everyone has a story to tell, so I hope my book inspires young women to share theirs.
Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize winner
Behind the Cover is part of the National Literacy Trust and Lancôme’s Words for Work: Women in Leadership programme,. The initiative has directly improved the literacy skills, leadership abilities and confidence of nearly 1,000 young women aged 16-18 across the UK since it launched in 2018.
To join Behind the Cover, visit literacytrust.org.uk/behind-the-cover
Join the conversation by following @ZoneIn_Skills on Instagram and using the hashtag #BehindTheCoverClub.