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Imagine a warm, colourful space where children can sit, or lounge, on the carpet – and just read: read what they’ve chosen themselves; read without follow-up tests; browse, skip and skim; become glued to books or magazines, or discard them at will; gaze at pictures as well as soaking up words.Ìý Imagine them talking to each other excitedly about what they’ve just read, or the amazing facts they’ve discovered from books or IT devices. Imagine a space that they feel is theirs; one that says ‘Be yourself’ rather than ‘Be careful’. And, in whatever size the space may be, imagine that (in Ted Hughes’s phrase) they’ll ‘turn the key to the whole world.’ (1)

"Boys do read - sometimes more than girls. They just don't talk about it as much, or pretend they're reading, as some girls do, to keep you happy!"ÌýTheÌýauthenticÌývoice of real-life experience from leading school librarian Eileen Armstrong, with whom I collaborated to produce the government-backed ‘Boys into Books’Ìýinitiative back in 2007.ÌýIs the issue of boys’ reading still ‘a thing’, 14 years on?Ìý

‘If I visited your school’, I often ask teachers and school librarians, ‘wouldÌýI knowÌýthat it’s a school that values reading…ÌýbeforeÌýI got to the library?’Ìý(This assumes the library’s lively, well-stocked, welcoming,Ìýand used). ‘Would I see photographsÌýof a recent author visit on yourÌýentranceÌýarea’s computer screen? Would I see, at child’s-eye level in the corridors,Ìýjumbled book titles,Ìý‘children’s picks’, and author bios?ÌýAre there poems in unusual places, likeÌýthe back ofÌýtoilet cubicle doors?ÌýÌýÌý