To think Marcus Rashford is doing an amazing thing

[hibbledibble]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/entertainment-arts-54972339

I'm shocked that so many children in the UK do not own a single book: it's a travesty. I naively thought that it was something accessible to all families, especially with the bookstart packages. I'm glad he is doing something to right this.

I am absolutely shocked to hear that so many schools don't have libraries, I knew public libraries had been decimated but assumed that young people would always have access to libraries at school. That's really, really sad.

Rashford seems to have more social conscience and will to make things happen than many politicians. I hope he stands for election one day!

The other positives from this are that it is also aimed at raising aspirations amongst the 11-16 year olds, they are targeting vulnerable and children from underprivileged backgrounds. There has also been some reassurance that the benefits of using libraries will be promoted too. Bookstart is still going for babies and then pre-schoolers followed by Reading Time for reception children. It's so good to see someone using their position to make a change. Rashford only started reading at 17...

I think this is great. Rashford is great as well.

Books are widely available in towns or cities with public libraries (those that haven't closed yet); nonetheless, Rashford's own lived experience was that his family simply didn't go to libraries (I don't know why, there may have been several reasons) and he therefore didn't discover books until he was 17 years old. This initiative should help in addressing those sort of barriers, which i'm not going to go into in any detail as I probably don't understand them. Nonetheless, they clearly exist.

My children are fortunate that I'm a book lover and have a budget for plenty of attractive books that feed their interests, especially as DS1 is strongly dyslexic, struggled to learn to read and finds format critical to accessibility. Add in ASD which affects the way he accesses the content of books, chracters, tension and information. It's a challenge!

Library hours have been slashed in the past decade. Even before March the late evening opening was long gone and accessibility outside of school hours is poor. Ours is now down to 6 hours of click and collect, within school hours. No opportunity for children to browse and find something to capture their interests. For a child like DS1, seeing the book is essential in finding something pleasurable to read.

School has a good little library. Which is useless when it is constantly in use as a meeting room or intervention space. I was talking to the y1 teacher a couple of years ago and many of the youngeŕ children didn't realise that the school had a library because it is avaliable so infrequently.

10+ years ago I was doing supply over tutor time and a 12 year old boy told me that he'd never read a whole book. He'd looked like he was reading, he'd cheated and skipped pages; he'd never actually concentrated on an entire book from cover to cover. It's stuck in my memory as it just seemed such a lost opportunity.

It is so easy for children to slip through and never read for pleasure, to never access anything more exciting than a school reader dominated by Kipper, Biff and Chip. Add in literacy difficulties. Low family ability/ interest in facilitating interest (possibly parents with difficulties themselves). Anti-book/ education cultures.

Bookstart is a great scheme for giving yoing families access to books and quite accessible. But once in school that fizzles and reading is so easily reduced to a chore in a joyless, content driven curriculum.

Encouraging and facilitating boys to find the joy in reading can go a long way in improving outcomes to some of the most disadvantaged groups in education.

I really admire Marcus Rashford. He is an inspirational man and a great role model.

Also he is raising awareness - kids should not suffer because they were born into a poor family...I think as a society we need to do more.

We are becoming so much like the United States. Whilst I am happy that there are wonderful people fighting the good fight such as Marcus Rashford, I fear that when even attractive things like books for children/ feeding children are issues being dealt with by the philanthropic efforts of the rich and famous that it is symptomatic of deeper failings at every level. If we need to fundraise for children's basic needs, then who is helping the drug addicts, the mentally ill, the homeless, the unemployed, the abused, the sex workers and the ex offenders? Because the flip side is always, philanthropy fills the gap when it comes to feeding kids, but nobody fills the gap when it comes to preventing sex offenders re offending, or testing sex workers for HIV. Even though some of these book less kids have HIV positive sex workers for mothers or sex offenders living next door. If we are failing CHILDREN this monumentally, then I really do fear for our society.

@BackforGood

He comes across as a lovely young man, and the book people have been very clever to get him on board. However, in cities, everyone has access to hundreds upon thousands of books, free, every week from the LA libraries. I'm sure someone will come on and say they live rurally and their library service has shut, but schools also have libraries. Good luck to them, but this isn't something that has the same impact as feeding families. If anything, I reckon it would make more sense to get behind keeping those libraries open more hours and getting facilities into areas who can't reach libraries. I'd rather children had access to hundreds of thousands of books than be given one.

I’m in London and most libraries have closed, not just due to Covid. School libraries rely on donations.

People really need to understand that this is a marketing campaign for Rashford's own books, rather than simply the philanthropy the BBC are positioning it as.

Macmillian secured the world rights for Rashford's books in a three-way auction and this book club is part of their marketing plan:

"The launch of the partnership will be "a major global event in 2021", according to MCB, with the publisher promising an "innovative and extensive" marketing and PR campaign"

What's not so clear is how they are actually going to get books into children's hands. Are they expecting them to buy them? As pp have rightly pointed out, if money is tight then books will be low down the priority list in the weekly budget.

Lots of people remember BookStart, but that's just one of a number of programmes from the children's reading charity BookTrust aimed at children across different age groups:
www.booktrust.org.uk/what-we-do/programmes-and-campaigns/

BookTrust was founded in 1921, so will be celebrating their centenary next year, however over the last decade they have lost a lot of their government funding.
If you want to directly support a child in need of a book this Christmas please consider donating to their Christmas appeal:
www.booktrust.org.uk/support-us/give-ten-pounds-today-and-bring-joy-to-a-vulnerable-child-this-christmas/

@BackforGood

He comes across as a lovely young man, and the book people have been very clever to get him on board. However, in cities, everyone has access to hundreds upon thousands of books, free, every week from the LA libraries. I'm sure someone will come on and say they live rurally and their library service has shut, but schools also have libraries. Good luck to them, but this isn't something that has the same impact as feeding families. If anything, I reckon it would make more sense to get behind keeping those libraries open more hours and getting facilities into areas who can't reach libraries. I'd rather children had access to hundreds of thousands of books than be given one.

Many schools don't have libraries. My son's school turned their library into a learning resource centre with computers and got rid of the books. The selection they had was woeful, no literature to read for pleasure.

I live near to a major city and library opening hours are such that many working families can;t access them during opening hours (the few that are left)

I think it's brilliant.

Charity is a good thing.

However tackling the root cause would have more of an impact rather than just something else parents don’t provide themselves.

I remember my son aged 10 decided to go into the local library to do his homework after school (because I needed to go to the chemist and he didn't want to come with me). He picked himself a book and wento the the computers in the children's section.

When I went to meet him there half an hour later I got told off because he should not have been allowed in unacompanied. I enquired was he causing trouble and was told no, but it wasn't allowed for him to be there without an adult.

How to put off a boy from ever visiting the library again in one easy lesson.

@Comefromaway - please don't let your son be put off by this incident. Most libraries won't allow children of primary school age to be there alone, not because they might cause trouble but to protect your child. For the same reason we don't allow lone adults to use the children's computers or work tables.
Prior to this rule there have been many occasions where staff have been ready to lock up and no has been to collect said child. We would never let them out into the streets and have had to phone parents to come and collect them.
Even when it's dark and we closed at 7:30

He was less than 12 months off starting secondary school and was starting to be allowed to go places on their own. The library closed at 5.30pm and was in the middle of a little market town 5 mins walk from his school.

^When I went to meet him there half an hour later I got told off because he should not have been allowed in unacompanied. I enquired was he causing trouble and was told no, but it wasn't allowed for him to be there without an adult.

How to put off a boy from ever visiting the library again in one easy lesson.^

That never used be the case but, even years ago when I worked in a library, some parents used the children's library as a free childminding service. I remember one distressed little girl who had been in the library for ages, approaching me very upset because her mummy was late. This has probably got worse over the years, so your authority has made a rule and has an age limit. Sadly, that age limit is older than 10. Also if there is a rule, it would have to all libraries in the local authority, even those that have never had a problem.

Our local library had that problem too, parents blatantly taking the piss and using it for free child minding.
The library had to draw the line - for safeguarding as well as everything else.
As usual a small minority ruins things for everyone.

It's difficult to get boys to read. We're both teachers and have always had loads of books in the house, went to the library with children when they were younger, went to lots of cultural things such as museums, theatre etc. DD has always read lots but DS11 barely reads. He has loads of books in his room but it's painful trying to get him to read. So if Marcus Rashford can inspire young boys to read I would think it is a positive step.

I do find it hard to believe that families can't afford any books. They get free packs for babies but charity shops always have books cheap.

I have found that boys who read, read like mad til the age of about 12. They are the ones who tear through mega series like Beast Quest and the older equivalents. But they fall off a cliff at about 12.
So yeah, Rashford encouraging them to keep going would be great.
There has been a wildly popular Football Heroes (I think?) Series for the 9+ age group, fictionalised biogs of famous footballers.
It would be great if Rashford went down that road Iin his writing for maybe older boys.

I later found that the official age that children should be accompanied up to is age 8.

Next time he went into town to kill time he went to McDonalds instead.

In most local authorities' public buildings, it's 10 years old. There's a whole heap of rules regarding the safe guarding of children even relating what to do if the child's parent doesn't come to collect them at closing time. We use primary school age as our benchmark.
You're obviously a parent that cares but as other library workers have said other parents take advantage.

YANBU. He is using his platform brilliantly. As PP said, getting young boys/teens to read is very hard. Seeing a footballer encourage it may just help.

He is clearly passionate about the children in this country, how can that ever be a bad thing?

I later found that the official age that children should be accompanied up to is age 8.

That sounds like a reasonable rule then though obviously someone messed up in trying to apply it to your DS.