Speaking at the Downing Street launch of the National Year of Reading earlier this week, Gordon Brown spoke enthusiastically about the policy for a national push on reading. His speech hilighted the potential for bringing about social cohesion and equality "It's not just the joy of reading, father-to-son or in the classroom,' he said ,  It’s probably one of the best anti-poverty, anti-deprivation, anti-crime, anti-vandalism policies you can think of."  The sentiment was echoed by former Children's Laureate, Michael Morpurgo who said that children need to be read aloud to in school every day (hear hear!)

Reporting in The Telegraph, Rosa Prince highlighted this positive message with the headline 'Read for Your Future'. While the Daily Mail chose to lead with a headline highlighting  research that a quarter of adults admitted to not having read a book in the past 12 months. The same report also stated that nearly half of the adults surveyed had read at least five books in that period.

Richard Madeley, who attended the Downing Street seminar, talked about the virtue of celebrity promotion as a means of extending the reach of the message. Not exactly a new idea.... and what a pity the recent launch of the Richard and Judy Children's Book Club and the subsequent programme didn't have more of a presence of 'hard to reach children' We'll watch with interest to see how these children are given more of a profile on future programmes.

To find out more about the National Year of Reading and how you can be involved visit  The National Year of Reading website.

Telegraph report

Daily Mail report

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