Bookstart funding to stop in England from April 2011

[Campaspe]

I've posted this in chat, but guess it really belongs here.

www.voicesforthelibrary.org.uk/wordpress/?p =777

Hope this link works. It advises that from April 2011, all funding for Bookstart will stop, but this applies in England only. See the Booktrust website for more details.

I am so angry at this short-sighted decision and the fact that is applies to England only. How can I campaign to get this changed? Anything that promotes reading and education for children in this way helps to create a more just and equal society. HOw can we not afford to support literacy in this way????

Well, they aren't, are they? what evidence do you have for that? Apart from anecdotal evidence about some isolated examples.
I think most of the books, most of the time, will be read.
In the comprehensive school where I teach, the books are (I can tell you, with absolute certainty) read and enjoyed by the vast majority of the Y7 pupils. In fact, they end up swapping the books between themselves so they read more than one. The books ARE well used.

Well apart from a number of people on this thread saying they have seen them handed into charity shops or for sale on E bay as a reception teacher I've actually watched parents dump the bag complete with book in the playground bin. All too often when you ask the class if they enjoyed their book there are some who tell you "my mum chucked it away" or "I'm not allowed it".

By the age of 12 children can pick a book from the list and will usually be able to read it independently but the same doesn't apply to the youngest children. There is no choice of book for younger children so no opportunity to swap so much more limiting even for those lucky children who have stories read to them.

I have never come across books thrown away.
The funding was being withdrawn for all the books though, not just the toddlers

The books are given out at different ages as I said earlier(between birth and age 12) and only the Y7 children get a choice of book which perhaps is part of the problem.
Over the years the books given to nursery aged children ) have been books that many book owning families will have on their shelves already - Rumble in the Jungle, Penguin, Peace at Last ... reception aged children similarly have had standards Harry and the dinosaurs, Funnybones ...

CheerfulYank - we have Dolly's Imagination library here in Rotherham. Tis brilliant. We get a new book each month & DD adores her books as a result. We never leave the house without a couple of books in the changing bag & she'd rather sit on my knee being read to than almost any other activity.

As a children's library service manager in an inner London borough, several things struck me about the anti-Bookstart comments in this and related threads. To paraphrase:

"Charity shops are a good source of quality children's books". Sometimes yes, often no. I've seen lots of appallingly illustrated, written and bound books in charity shops. Clearly the people who dumped them had taste enough to be rid of them! Also, many parents simply don't know where to start when choosing books. Bookstart select good quality, age appropriate titles.

"Spend the money on libraries, not Bookstart". The "either or" argument does not hold water. It is a recipe to end up with neither. If anyone really thinks the government will spend the saved money on libraries instead, is very naive.

"Go to the library and borrow books instead". Fine words, but many parents don't think libraries are for them. They see them as places for the middle-class (who probably have superior attitudes and downers on things like Bookstart). Bookstart promotes library use and gets many of those suspicious families into libraries.

"Well off families don't need Bookstart and so is a waste of money". OK, let's throw the baby out with the bath water (or the book).

"I've found Bookstart bags in charity shops". You find all sorts of things in charity shops. Do you abandon something just because it's abused?

"Bookstart should be targetted at the poor or uneducated". Easier said than done. I should know, I deal with distribution Bookstart in my borough. To attempt to collate data about "the needy" (however you decide to define that) and then devise a targetted gifting mechanism would probably cost more than a universal gifting approach. Also remember, some poor people do read with their children, and some middle-class ones don't. It's not as straightforward as some obviously think it is.

If you're a parent who buys your child books, joins the library, reads with your child, is able to select quality age-appropriate books, then well done! But if you're not, should you be robbed of pointers in the right direction just to appease those smug, self-satisfied educated middle-class people whose real agenda is not improving educational standards or concern for the nation's economy but a desire to remain in their cosy, superior elite?

My yr 7 (Secondary School) child was given a choice of a new book yesterday at school - I have no idea what funding stream it came from, but I think it is wonderful that a 12 yr old can choose a book to be their own and to take home. It is so hard to keep older children interested in reading irrespective of where the reading book comes from or what so called class you inhabit. So giving my child the choice to chose a book meant she read her sibling their bed time story last night! Marvellous - I am happy for my taxes to go to that book funding stream.