It’s quarter past seven in the evening, the blackout blind is down and my daughter’s bedroom is lit by the night light’s gossamer glow. Her traditional bedtime incantation begins: “Buh, buh, buh.” (Translation for those less versed in toddlerese: “Book, book, book.”) Which will it be tonight? The spare, sparse prose of Lift-the-Flap Peek-a-Boo? The magical realism of Finger Wiggle Book? The picaresque Space Baby: Zoom to the Moon!? Or the travelogue romp All Aboard: Train?
For all the Julia Donaldsons and Allen Ahlbergs and Beatrix Potters hanging out in her bookcase, it’s these gnomic titles that have most fascinated her in all her 18 months of literary criticism. They are among the free books every child receives when they’re born under Bookstart, which was rolled out to most UK councils 25 years ago.
Ever since I discovered the scheme after my daughter was born last year, I’ve found it a quiet thrill. And not just because of the proven benefits for parent-child bonding, or a baby’s fine motor skills, or any other very worthy outcomes – but more the shared national experience. The idea that every newborn in the UK ends up with the same book in the bottom of their pram or beside their cot, at the same time in their lives, feels like the closest thing infants have to a water-cooler moment (“Did you lift that flap last night? No spoilers!”). And it’s always fun to see another parent grappling with the surprisingly stiff mechanics of the moveable tabs in Roar! Roar! I’m a Dinosaur! and offer the obligatory nod of solidarity.
This collective joy isn’t just hormones, it’s the whole point. The scheme follows the principle of proportionate universalism – interventions for the whole population, but with a scale and intensity reflecting need. Bookstart is a neat example of this concept, first coined in the landmark Marmot Review into health inequality of 2010. Free books for every child from 0-12 months, and then free books targeted at kids up to the age of four in poorer families beyond that.
It’s a “something for everyone” approach to policy. Everyone benefits and – perhaps just as significantly – feels they have a stake in the system. Those in tougher circumstances aren’t muffled by a blanket approach, but nor do they feel singled out or stigmatised. There are no cliff edges or squeezed middles. A lesson, perhaps, for when ministers try to scrap universal benefits such as winter fuel. Fifteen years on from the Marmot Review, there is still too little of the Bookstart way in the British state. While universalism has been whittled down, inequality persists. Life expectancy is falling in the most deprived places, and there is a widening rich-poor educational attainment gap.
Bookstart has, over the years, defied unhappy endings. It was nearly scrapped in 2010 when the coalition government began tightening budgets, only to then lose half its funding in a partial U-turn. It weathered the closure of Sure Start children’s centres and cuts to councils (which pay for the scheme’s local delivery), and was cancelled altogether two years ago in Northern Ireland, before returning a year later. These books feel like little primary-coloured missives from a more beneficent political era.
As it has been running in some form since its first pilot in 1992, Bookstart’s impact is clear. An economic study from 2010 on its investment return stands out: it found that every £1 spent on the scheme resulted in an impressive £25 of social value (through improved well-being and school performance). Eighty per cent of parents say the books make them feel more confident about reading with their children. These figures are flashes of hope in an otherwise bleak landscape, with children reading for pleasure less and less. Perhaps it’s time to extend the scheme.
Not that my daughter cares about all that – she’s not on numbers yet, after all. I promise I don’t sit her down and read her the results of social-return-on-investment analyses before bed. She’d be a great sleeper if I did. But while she is graduating to Elmer and the Very Hungry Caterpillar and Funnybones, she still reaches for the books that she gurgled and drooled at – those that were handed out at the children’s centre in the newborn haze. Her giggle when, for what must be the thousandth time, I poke my index and middle fingers through the holes in the Finger Wiggle Book and tickle her as we read only becomes more hysterical each night. Her pride when she can label animals who are all aboard the eponymous train – “DUCK!” (it’s a very laissez-faire train line) – is a delight. And her wide-eyed recognition when she sees one of these front covers when we’re out – in the buggy of the next-door baby on the bus, or with crinkled edges in a clinic waiting room – makes me feel that part-of-something warmth.
My own reading time has shrunk considerably since my daughter arrived (with apologies to editors for this being my sole contribution to the New Statesman’s books special this year). But my reading universe is huge – limitless, if you follow Space Baby’s space race-defying trajectory. These free books reach 90 per cent of newborns. Somehow, knowing that pretty much every other parent in this strange and often dizzying stage of life is finding comfort in the same stories has been a comfort in itself.
[Further reading: Inside the battle to lead Your Party]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 04 Dec 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Books of the Year