Wed May 12th, 2010
By Cassandra Clark
Among the exhibitors who were not affected by the Volcano was the Book Trust. They are close to my heart because they are a charity set up to promote a love of reading.
They work with a number of orgnisations and run many different projects across a wide age range, from babies to oldsters in retirement.
BOOKSTART for instance is a public and private partnership to encourage parents and carers to enjoy books with small children. They give free books to children at eight months, eighteen months and three years distributed through health visitors, libararies and early years settings. The website for this is www.bookstart.org.uk
For the year seven age group they have a site called BOOKED UP www.bookedup.org.uk and to show they are tech savvy there are interactive games on site and an Alternative Reality Game, aimed at teens.
Among many other projects, too many to mention here, they run a short story award, support the childrens' laureate award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. They are also active in diversity issues and have now set up recommendations for this.
Their website features a database of more than 2,000 books, categorised by reading age and interest level.
The best way to see their full range of sites is to have a look at the main site www.booktrust.org.uk and go on from there. They deserve our full support.
Good work, everybody!
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