Bookworms

A good book takes readers to new worlds; the right book shows you that you deserve to exist in this one.

If we want children to be real readers – book lovers – it’s vital that they see themselves in the books they read. So, it’s good to see former Birmingham Young Poet Laureate Nyanda Foday’s poem wherein she encourages all youngsters to become, like her, avid readers. She writes of spending nights reading under the bedclothes with a phone torch, days in playground corners and lunchtimes in libraries reading. I love this description: ‘Sometimes a book is the sole piece of driftwood to cling to when it feels like your life is going down with the ship.’ Surely all readers deserve to come across a special character, a friend that reminds them there are others like them. No child should feel lonely during their reading journey: this is vital for both authors and illustrators to remember and assuredly Joelle Avelino had this in the forefront of her mind when creating the illustrations for this powerfully expressed book: a book that gives everyone the confidence to find their place in the world.

There’s huge classroom potential and the possibility of hours of discussion between the covers of this one.