Everyone is a Reader: A Handbook to help Children with Reading Difficulties

Mathias and Spiers have long worked with children with special needs, and these two handbooks are useful additions to the literature.
Death and Bereavement is an update of a bibliography published in 1992. There are 146 annotated titles in the new edition, mainly British, but material from other countries is also included. The books cover a wide age range and a reading age and interest age are given for each entry. Many of the choices are adult books, intended for those working with children coming to terms with death. An author index, a keyword index and a list of relevant organisations are included.

Everyone is a Reader also has an annotated book list for all age groups, but the material includes cassette tapes, videos, Braille, sign language, Moon, language games and large print items – 150 of them. Mathias makes the point that all these media are legitimate ways of enjoying literature. An excellent introduction includes sections on the conditions that affect reading ability, language development in children and helping a child to become a reader. In this last section some of the techniques used at the REACH Centre are explained. As a short, succinct introduction to using books with special needs children, the handbook could hardly be better. A list of useful organisations is included.