Earlier this month I was asked to be the new Waterstones children’s laureate. It was on the news! On television! All week, strangers have been congratulating me. As they shake my hand, they ask if it means I now have to write a poem for the King’s birthday. I explain that I’m the children’s laureate not the poet laureate. They leave looking pleased for me, but slightly disappointed for themselves. I feel like a literary Gareth Southgate.
Being laureate isn’t an honour, it’s a job. According to BookTrust, only 42 per cent of children are read a bedtime story, and only half one- to two-year-olds from low-income families are read to daily. Children with a good experience of books before school do better educationally, and, more importantly, are happier. It’s a huge, invisible privilege. I want to do something about the children who are missing out. I’ve been out looking for the best, most innovative approaches to books for early years. I can report that the people at The Meadows Nursery in Shirecliffe in Sheffield can do things with an old copy of the Very Hungry Caterpillar that you wouldn’t believe! They see books as more like a recipe than a meal. Instead of just reading the story, they spin all kind of games and activities out of it over a period of time. Parents are drawn in. Shared pleasure creates shared trust, which in turn helps create community. I asked how they measured success. This has been a very fractured community, but now dozens of its families are about to go on a camping holiday together. I come away absolutely buzzing with the hope that if I can find a way to celebrate and share ideas like these, we can heal Britain with glue sticks and scissors.
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