From today until 7th February copies of six stories from former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo’s Mudpuddle Farm series will be handed out  free with Happy Meals. Finger puppets of characters from the series will accompany each book to encourage parents to read with and bring the stories to life with their children.

The promotion is being backed by Harper Collins, who publish the Mudpuddle Farm series, and The National Literacy Trust, whose recent research revealed that one in three children in Britain do not own a book. Director Jonathan Douglas said:

We are very supportive of McDonald’s decision to give families access to popular books, as its size and scale will be a huge leap towards encouraging more families to read together.

Having seen for ourselves how valuable just one book can be to children, and having reached so many with Our Read we think that such a promotion is a fantastic way to extend the reach of reading. Given that eight out of ten families with young children visit McDonalds at least once a year, it’s great to know that they’re contributing to getting more children reading.

The book’s editor, Frances Macmillan, tells us on the book’s blog:

The writers are all from very different backgrounds. Some grew up with a multitude and variety of wonderful books within their reach; some had parents who imparted to them a fierce desire for books and for learning; for others, books were hard to come by, or even illicit. But all ten are united here in a passionate belief in the distinctive and irreplaceable pleasures and powers of reading.

In a year of rude awakenings to low levels of literacy and a widespread apathy towards books and reading, this book demands an interruption. Stop What You’re Doing and Read. Read these essays, because they aim to convince you to make reading part of your daily life. Read a novel because it will enable you to travel in time and space, or else quicken your sense of ordinary existence – family tensions, falling in or out of love, growing up or growing old.  Read a poem, because it won’t be as difficult as you think, and it might help you uncover and articulate a thought or a feeling previously buried deep. Read a story, if you’re short on time, because it imposes a unique period of peace and concentration into your busy life. Read out loud, to your children, to a partner, because reading together casts a potent and intimate spell.

The book aims to start people talking and thinking about books, and valuing reading itself in a new way, so we’re starting up a blog as a way of carrying on that conversation. We want to hear from readers – which books or poems do you love? Which book or poem changed the way you see the world? Have you ever found consolation or relief in reading a great book? Do you ever read books or poems aloud? We’ll be recommending great books throughout the year, encouraging debate about the importance of reading and we want to hear from you.

Read more about the book and share your comments on the Stop blog. You can also ask questions, recommend great books and join in the debate.

Help us remind everyone about the transformative power of reading and to build the Reading Revolution even further. Buy your copy now. Stop what you’re doing and read it.

You can follow Jane Davis, Director of The Reader Organsiation, here on Twitter and also over here, on her blog.

It is unlikely, however, that any of them will be as controversial as Carl Roberts’s This Side Idolatry, a novel published in 1928 which portrayed Dickens as ‘a hypocrite, philanderer, selfish, an egoist, vulgar, morose, and avaricious, caricaturing his friends in his books behind their backs,’ according to the reviewer from The Sunday Times upon its release.

The book so offended the city of Portsmouth, where Dickens was born in 1812, that it was banned from its libraries; only now has it been restored to their shelves  in the name of ‘freedom of expression and debate,’ says Dom Kippin, Portsmouth City Council’s literature officer.

‘Dickens’s literary legacy is strongly established and [Roberts's] book merely adds to the rich tapestry of ideas and opinions that make him one of the English language’s greatest writers,’ he continues. So if you’re in Portsmouth and want to catch up on some literary gossip then head down to your local library and join in the debate!

The Reader Organisation’s annual Penny Readings, which follow in a tradition established by Dickens, will take place in St George’s Hall in Liverpool on December 4th – full details to follow in mid-November so watch this space! 

Frank’s story about the two Mongolian brothers who arrive in Bootle and enlist a local schoolgirl as their ‘good guide’ to the area has been warmly reviewed by Betsy Bird of the Fuse #8 blog, who suggests that it might be his best novel and describes the book as:

the kind of book you get when an author gets an original idea and works it into something memorable. This is one story kids will read and then find difficult to forget.

Bird also praises the distinctive layout of the book, with its notebook-style page design and inventive use of Polaroid photographs, combined with Frank’s deft storytelling abilities:

Few authors have a way of turning you over on your head in the course of reading a children’s title. Boyce can. Can and does. This is, without a doubt, one of the best little books I’ve ever read. A brilliant melding of text and image, it’s a wonderful example of what can happen when an author goes for something entirely new.

The story has also caught the eye of Meghan Cox Gurdon in the Wall Street Journal, who praised the book’s positive approach to foreign cultures and described it as:

a funny and affecting book for children ages 10 to 14

So if you haven’t read The Unforgotten Coat yet then we can only encourage you to do so, whatever age you are!

Certainly, if sales are anything to go by, then children’s literature is well and truly ruling the roost in the UK book market. Figures from Nielsen BookScan presented at last week’s Bookseller Children’s Conference provided a lot to smile about; in the first half of 2011 up to July the sales of children’s books outperformed all others, overall sales coming out at a staggering £143 million. Pre-school books/picture books and children’s general non-fiction performed particularly well, with both categories upping their sales by 6% from the previous year. It appears that in the time of recession, children’s reading is prioritised by many parents; a particular point of interest being that a select group of older books are the ones being bought in their multitudes.

But it’s not just kids who are ravenously reading the books that are designed for them; just as a dog is for life and not just for Christmas, children’s literature is finding an increasingly comfortable home in the hands – and hearts – of many adult readers. And it would seem that not only are the more grown-up amongst us reading children’s books simply for pleasure but are doing so to revisit the far simpler pleasures of days long past. According to new research, adults are attracted to reading many of the children’s classics as they offer a vivid picture of what has been lost for a lot of people in this frantic modern life – or as, author of the research Dr Louise Joy suggests, because they represent a “symbolic retreat from the disappointment of reality” (as perhaps, all books do in some form…?). It appears such books don’t just provide us with boundless wonder, fantasy and adventure that can be enjoyed at any age but also give us guides for living a happy, humble and fulfilling life, whether it be in the area of self-awareness and self-perception (Alice In Wonderland; several books of Roald Dahl; Wind in The Willows), relationships with others (Winnie The Pooh)…or even just appreciating the goodness of a hearty meal (The Hobbit). More in-depth and insightful information will be revealed by Dr Joy in a forthcoming book, Literature’s Children, and her findings will be presented at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas, which will be taking place later this month.

Whatever you’re looking to get out of reading a piece of children’s literature – be it solace, escapism, a reminder of the comfort and cosiness of childhood past or just sheer enjoyment – such news surely comes as solid proof that you’re never too old to read something supposedly just for kids.

Patrick McGuinness‘ debut novel, The Last Hundred Days, has been longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. Set in late 1980s Bucharest, during the violent overthrow of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, the thriller follows a young English student as he witnesses the last days of the violent regime. McGuinness’ work has featured in The Reader magazine a few times, with excerpts  from the start of The Last Hundred Days published in the Spring 2010 issue. Ordinarily a poet, he turned to prose form to depict a time and place he experienced first-hand whilst working as a teaching assistant at 19. Infused with the vivid style of a thriller, The Last Hundred Days presents the lives of dissidents and students working against the secret police, and experiencing the destruction of the city around them, in totalitarian Romania.

The Shortlist of six authors will be announced on 6th September with the overall winner being declared on 18th October at London’s Guildhall, and will be broadcast on the BBC. We will be keeping our figures crossed for Patrick!

This statistic relates to sales in America, although amazon.co.uk are selling more ebooks than hardcovers, despite the increase in hardback sales. 242 ebooks are sold by Amazon in the UK for every 100 hardbacks. Waterstone’s sees an even greater ratio of 4:1 in favour of ebooks.

Figures in the publishing industry have been keen to point out that these figures relate to individual unit sales rather than income or profit.

It seems that every reader has an opinion on ereaders. Traditionalists love the smell and feel of a good book that can adorn their shelves and give a bit of character to a room. The clumsy ones amongst us like knowing that if a drink leaks in our bags then it generally causes £5-10 of damage, rather than a three-figured amount. (My Lucozade-soaked War and Peace is testament to that.)

On the other hand the techies amongst us like the ability to get a book instantly and to hold numerous books on one small device complete with annotations and electronic bookmarks.

But as long as people are reading great literature, we’re happy!

Now new research has indicated that a growing number of boys are ‘reluctant readers’, rapidly losing passion for reading, being put off by the classics of English literature and finding that the longer a book is, the more unappealing it becomes. The publishers Pearson carried out a study in secondary schools across the UK which has found that on a national level, 60% of all reluctant readers are boys. Out of 500 teachers surveyed, 57% expressed concern about the high number of boys who were reluctant to read in classes.

An especially important finding in the research was pinpointing exactly where it is in reading a book that boys begin to lose interest; overall, 70% of teachers have noticed that the attention span of boys had diminished drasticallyon average by the 100th page of a book. However, nearly a quarter of teachers report that engagement with a book can be lost for boys as soon as within the first few pages – and such dramatic disengagement amongst boys is felt most accurately in the North West. It was also pointed out that longer books – over 200 pages in length – are a particular stumbling block; three in ten teachers noted that boys switched off before even starting a book of such length, whereas only 3% stated that this was the case with girls, reinforcing the notion of a gender reading gap.

Further to research amongst teachers, over 260 boys aged between 11-13 also took part in the study. One in five said they thought that reading was primarily ‘for girls’, with the same number saying they prefer to read shorter books – of fewer than 100 pages. Yet, there are glimmers of hope amongst the worrying figures. Despite a signifcant erosion of engagement in reading, more than four in ten boys questioned said their ideal book would be longer than 200 pages – contradicting what their teachers said – and nearly half said they preferred reading books in full rather than just reading extracts. Such findings show that the spark of interest for reading is still there for boys, encouragingly; it is just a question of kindling that spark to grow larger.

In the hope of doing so, a series of completely new and original books designed especially for boys of the age range surveyed has been launched. HEROES has been put together with the assistance of Our Read author Frank Cottrell Boyce and the books in the series have been created with the aim of switching boys back on to reading, increasing their engagement with books as well as building their confidence around reading and improving their literacy skills. In order to help combat the issue of reluctant reading, the books incorporate things that boys identified as those that would make them more interested in reading – action, adventure, crime, horror and thrilling narrative -  as well as being shorter to capture boys’ attention.

Frank hopes that by reading the HEROES books, boys will renew their interest in reading away from school and will gradually begin to read longer stories, saying that boys must be started on shorter books intially if they are to become lifelong readers: “Nobody wants to run a marathon if they can’t run.” As with all readers, the key aspect in switching on boys’ attention is pleasure – and, as Frank says, pleasure can’t be taught: it can only be shared. But the classroom is a good place to start to encourage boys – and girls – to continue their reading adventures elsewhere. “According to Unesco, the biggest single indicator of whether a child is going to thrive at school and in work is whether or not they read for pleasure. Our hope is that the stories in Heroes will be shared and enjoyed in the classroom by pupil and teacher alike because pleasure is the most powerful motivation.”

Hear more from Frank about the HEROES series (and a little bit about his reworking of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) in this video, broadcast on BBC Breakfast, 17th May 2011:

More information on the study about ‘reluctant readers’ in secondary schools can be read here.

This will be the first opportunity to hear about John’s new book The Absolutist, and takes place the day before the official publication day -  giving the Crosby audience the chance to be the first in the country to get their hands on the new novel!

The Absolutist is set in September 1919 and tells the story of 20 year-old Tristan Sadler, who takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver some letters to Marian Bancroft. Tristan fought alongside Marian’s brother Will during the Great War but in 1917, Will laid down his guns on the battlefield, declared himself a conscientious objector and was shot as a traitor, an act which has brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family.

But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan’s visit. He holds a secret deep in his soul, one that he is desperate to unburden himself of to Marian, if he can only find the courage.

An Audience with John Boyne is at Crosby Civic Hall (Crosby Road North, Crosby L22 0LQ) on Wednesday May 11th at 7pm.

Tickets for the event are £5. Contact 0151 928 1919/ 01704 540011 or visit www.seftonarts.co.uk to book your place.

The new books will tell the story of a family who get a little more than they bargained for after they soup up their VW camper van with an old racing car engine (I don’t think Jeremy Clarkson is to feature…).

Frank’s said that he has “no idea what made the Flemings think of asking me to write the sequel. I haven’t asked them in case it’s all a case of mistaken identity.”

Frank, it’s ‘cos you’re ace.