Childminders gifted new book collections for children in their care 

Read Manchester has been working on a project to gift Manchester childminders  collections of brand new, high quality books for them to use with the children in their daily care. The latest annual literacy survey by the National Literacy Trust shows that the reading crisis persists, with the number of children and young people who say they enjoy reading, and read daily, continuing to decline. Read Manchester is working hard to buck this trend by providing quality books for free to childcare settings, schools and community groups across the city. 

Over 100 childminders across the city were given free book collections, encouraging literacy and engagement with stories and books. These were distributed with the help of Manchester Libraries and the Manchester City Council Education Quality Assurance Team. 

Thanks to our partnership with the National Literacy Trust and with the continued support we receive from publishers and retailers, we were able to give away brand new copies of familiar favourite stories. These include The Gruffalo and Guess How Much I Love You, alongside best-selling titles What We’ll Build and The 13 Storey Treehouse, as well as local hero Marcus Rashford’s You Are A Champion book. 

Many Childminders reported the children loving the books, finding unboxing their collections ‘very exciting’, and the books themselves ‘so funny’. We also heard that being provided the collection for free had helped with ‘the expense of replenishing books so regularly’. The variety of books provided was well-received, with comments “we like the factual books as we don’t tend to buy those and [they’re] very informative” and the inclusivity was noted “the variety was great and promoted disabilities.” 

We were pleased to hear so many positive comments and that children were excited by the books- “Yes! I want to read about Marcus Rashford !!!” We hope that the new books become favourites with the children – like the report from one childminder who tells us “Guess How Much I Love You book has to now be read to one child every time they are in, and is now part of their bed time routine at home.” 

Fostering a lifetime love of reading is the aim of Read Manchester- with all the benefits that come alongside of this, including raising literacy levels and changing the life stories of children, young people and adults across the city.