I was delighted to be asked by Read For Good and Leicester-based literacy initiative Whatever it Takes to run workshops for 250 pupils at Leicester Racecourse and for one prize-winning school, Judgemeadow Community College. The plan was to cheer on students taking part in the Leicester city Readathon- a celebration of reading from 1st-12th October […]

I always struggle when trying to start writing a blog post for someone else. After all, it’s not my blog that the post will appear on, so there needs to be some sort of an introduction—but it’s very easy to slip in to Troy McClure from the Simpsons mode and say, ‘Hi, I’m Tom Percival! […]

The Trust was set up by the childrens’ and young adults’ author Siobhan Dowd, who in the last days of her life established a trust to use the income from her writing to fund reading projects for disadvantaged young people. Or – as the Trust mission statement goes – to provide books for the children […]

I’ve always been a big fan of Christmas – the twinkly lights, mince pies, mulled wine and hours watching films and playing Lego at home with my family, have been what makes it for me. But more recently, it’s been at work, in my job as Operations Manager at Read for Good, that Christmas has […]

The Read for Good bookcase has been on the Children’s Ward for four years and is enjoyed and appreciated by young people, parents, medical staff and definitely the teachers. As we wheel it around the ward, families’ eyes light up as they spot the range of books. Parents spot books they loved as children and […]

There’s something so magical about meeting the author of your favourite book and hearing about their inspiration for the story. As Bath Children’s Festival get underway this week, thousands of children will have the opportunity to do just this. My colleague, Heidi Perry and I have been lucky enough to have worked with Bath Children’s […]

Hello everyone! It’s the start of the second week of our summer holidays and we wanted to tell you about one of the things we’re doing over the summer. A couple of weeks ago we signed up to take part in Read For Good’s Big Holiday Read. The aim of the Big Holiday Read is […]

Hi, I’m the librarian in Wilmington Grammar School for Boys and I have been running Readathon for a number of years now. Each year has got progressively better in terms of involvement and money raised through introducing an element of competition. This year has been the best yet, raising in the region of £2,700! Readathon […]

Me – “Can you see what it says on the back of my t-shirt?” Child – “I’m a Readathon Storyteller” Me – “Yeah. The thing is… I’m a bit of a cheat.” Intrigued look from child. Me – “You see, I’m actually a story collector.” I have been pushing my wonderful mobile bookcases of Readathon […]

According to Peter Pan, all children except one, grow up. It’s a lovely fantasy but the sad reality is that not all children do. Hopefully, most of the young patients I met on my Readathon author visits to Evelina Children’s Hospital will go on to lead long and happy lives, but despite the best medical […]