Helping to encourage a love of books with the Scottish Friendly Children’s Book Tour

From a young age I have read to my children, even reading aloud to them both while I was pregnant.  I believe it is important to spend quality time reading to and with children.

 

I used to read loads as a child, choosing to add English Literacy as one of my GCSE options as I had a love of Shakespeare, infact I even own two complete libraries of the works of Shakespeare (one is a limited edition) – I walked away with a B in English GCSE and a B in my English Literacy.

 

Before Emmy came along I would devour book after book, reading the Harry Potter books in around 2 weeks (all of them that is) and the Twilight Trilogy in 2 days.  Sadly since the children arrived I no longer have the time to read and find my spare time is taken up writing this blog, which I love, however I am wanting to regain a little me time and have a few books lined up ready to read – although I can imagine they will take me much longer to read.

 

Paul has a huge love of books too – our house is stacked full of books, infact it’s over flowing with books yet he will not part with any of them.  The best gift I gave him was his Kindle Paperwhite as it means less books on the shelves.  This rule does not apply to the children though!

 

I want the children to grow up surrounded with books they can grab and read whenever they like. 

 

Harry has his books in his bedroom and recently he has taken to grabbing on from the shelf when he wakes up and sits down to read himself a story (OK, he is only 18 months so doesn’t read them but he mumbles himself a story and turns the pages).

 

Emmy has her own reading corner set up in her room and often takes herself off to read a book – it’s a lovely sight, especially when she reads to her Teddies too.

 

 

 

I was recently introduced to The Scottish Friendly Children’s Book Tour, which despite the name isn’t confined to Scotland alone.

 

The Scottish Book Trust is Scotland’s leading agency for the promotion of literature, reading and writing.  The organisation works with writers, children, teachers, librarian’s and readers from all backgrounds to spread a love of books and reading.

 

To support the Book Trust, Scottish Friendly has been running a book tour for the past 14 years.  The book tour takes the very best UK and international authors directly into schools across Scotland and England to inspire a love of reading, writing and illustration and reaches on average 6,000 children every year.  For more information about upcoming tours as well as videos please pop over to the Scottish Friendly Children’s Book Tour and take a look.

 

Emmy is yet to meet any authors but I’m sure she would love it, however every summer we attend our local library to complete the Summer reading challenge and it has fuelled her love of books even more – she likes the reward of a medal at the end of the challenge.  (You have to read 6 books over the course of the summer holidays and then tell the librarian all about them – you can read a previous post we have written about it here – Summer reading Challenge).

 

I do have an Author on my friends list on Facebook – Giles Paley-Phillips.  He has written “Things you never knew about Dinosaurs”, “The Fearsome Beastie”, “Princess Stay Awake”, “Tamara Small and the Monster’s Ball” and “There’s a Lion in my Bathroom”.  We have read most of these and the children are lucky enough to have a signed copy of “Things you never knew about Dinosaurs” and because it is signed they love it even more, with Emmy asking for her special Dinosaur book at bedtimes.