Tag: The Importance of Libraries

Children's Poet

Laura Mucha: The Belonging of Books

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the fact that people in power often don’t prioritise the needs of children.

HOW are school libraries NOT a statutory requirement?! HOW is CAMHS so pitifully underfunded? Given we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, HOW are we also one of most unequal?

I was having one of these moments when UNICEF got in touch. Having worked with them on a YouTube series exploring the science of love in childhood, they asked me to write a poem-film on the subject.

The science of love in childhood. Summarised. In a poem.

My initial reaction was AHRGAHRGAHRGHAGRHAGRHAGRAHR.

I’m comfortable being asked to write poems about specific subjects. I’ve done it enough now that I have faith I can do it – even if it does take five reject poems before I write (and rewrite and rewrite) one I’m actually happy with.

But this was a BIG ask.

So I immediately emailed the very brilliant Robbie Duschinsky at Cambridge University, the consultant on a book I’m writing for adults about attachment theory. And Robbie emailed fellow world-leading thinkers and researchers on the subject. My question for them was – which images do you think best describe love in childhood?

(Full disclosure – I didn’t technically use the word love. I used the phrase ‘secure attachment’. According to his family, John Bowlby, the founder of attachment theory, wanted to use the word ‘love’ but didn’t as he was worried the scientific community wouldn’t like it… So love feels like an acceptable shorthand for what is an incredibly complex theory of human development.)

The world leading experts talked about the importance of feeling received, welcome, accepted – and suggested images including: the feeling of a parents’ hand around yours; being folded into a huge hug; bandaging a hurt knee; being helped across stepping stones; and reading a book together.

Just to be clear – some of the world’s best thinkers on the subject of love in childhood, people who work in leading academic institutions around the globe and have dedicated their entire lives to the study of the subject, cited reading a book together as an image that came to mind when trying to describe it.

I thanked the academics in a profuse yet professional manner. I finished the poem-film (see below). And I got back to my work with a renewed vigour.

But their words had reminded me of something important that’s all too easy to forget – reading with children can be an act of love.

Through poetry, words, and books, we can help young people make sense of what is going on with them and with the others around them. We can give words to things they themselves may not be able to. We can bear witness. Decode. Connect. We can help them escape. Laugh. Learn, imagine, rest. We can block out the ceaseless distractions the world has to offer and devote our uninterrupted attention. We can engender empathy. We can open up urgent but difficult conversations – conversations that say “it’s OK, this isn’t your fault” or “this is important, let’s talk about this” or “you’re not alone”.

In doing so, no matter what is going on with the people in power, through the simple act of reading a poem or a book, we can each take microsteps towards creating a society where all children and young people are welcome, accepted and loved.

Laura Mucha

Laura Mucha is an award-winning poet whose books include Being Me, Rita’s Rabbit, We Need to Talk About Love and Dear Ugly Sisters. She writes for young people and adults and has several fiction and non-fiction books forthcoming with Walker, Hachette, Nosy Crow, Audible and Bloomsbury. As well as writing, Laura works with organisations such as the Royal Society of Medicine, National Literacy Trust and UNICEF to improve the lives of children.

Children's Poet

Chrissie Gittins: Libraries Do Change Lives

Libraries Do Change Lives

I grew up in a household with few books. My parents enjoyed the play of language and my mother was a talented raconteur. My father told me about a local man called Peter Nut (P. Nut) who married a woman called Hazel. My mother received a proposal of marriage from a man called Mr Jump who subsequently married a woman called Mrs Stamp. In school holidays my brother and I would sit down at the dinner table and ask my mother to tell us about ‘the olden days’. She would spin a detail into an elaborate story – the uncle who hung the apple wallpaper upside down, the hole that was knocked into a wall so they could listen to the radio next door.

Poster from the Great School Libraries website

It was through borrowing books from libraries that my interest in literature and language grew – both local and school libraries. It is a statutory, legal right for every community in the UK to have access to a local library. But 773 public libraries, a fifth of the libraries once in service, have closed since 2010. Statistics in a report from the Chartered Institute of Public Finances and Accountancy (CIPFA) show that use of public libraries has fallen by 70% in the past 20 years.

It is well documented that children who read for pleasure make marked progress in Maths and English and benefit greatly from the opportunity to explore their imagination. Children with books at home are six times more likely to read above their expected reading age. But if a family can’t access a library and haven’t spare money to buy books where are they to find them? In their school library perhaps? Astoundingly it is not a statutory requirement for every school to have a library. But it is a statutory requirement for every prison to have a library. In the UK 50% of prisoners are illiterate. How many of those prisoners could have widened their opportunities and avoided incarceration if their literacy had been nurtured through reading at an early age?

Recent issue of The School Librarian, the quarterly journal of the School Library Association

One in eight schools across England, Wales and Northern Ireland does not have a library. The bleak irony is that children on free school meals are twice as likely to be attending a school which doesn’t have a library. The Great School Libraries Campaign (https://www.greatschoollibraries.org.uk) addresses these inequalities in its objectives which include encouraging Ofsted to recognize libraries and librarians in their school inspection framework, and securing funding for school libraries. This has been a long-standing issue and in 2014 a report from the Libraries All Party Parliamentary Group asserted that it was ‘vital’ that all schools ‘have a good library to ensure children … fulfil their potential’. But this has not resulted in statutory school libraries.

Cordwalles Junior School, Surrey, school library. Photograph: Cordwalles Junior School

I was heartened to see that the current Children’s Laureate, Cressida Cowell, wrote an open letter in April to Boris Johnson calling for ring-fenced funding for school libraries to the tune of £100 million annually. (https://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-features/features/2021/april/libraries-change-lives-read-cressida-cowells-open-letter-to-prime-minister-boris-johnson/) ‘How is it fair,’ she writes, ‘that some children are being given this immeasurable advantage in life, but stark book poverty means many more are denied this same chance to change their future?’ She states that £28m would enable the one in eight primary schools without a library to develop space, stock and expertise; £75m per year would employ a part-time librarian; and £60m per year would allow a school to buy one new book a year for each child. Here’s to this government ensuring that a well-run, well-stocked library is provided for each and every child.

This is the contact information for Boris Johnson should you wish to email your thoughts: https://email.number10.gov.uk

Chrissie Gittins

Chrissie Gittins has had three of her five children’s poetry collections selected as Choices for the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf. Two were shortlisted for the CLiPPA Award. She won the Belmont Poetry prize and was a Manchester Children’s Literature Prize finalist. Her poems feature on Cbeebies and the Poetry Archive. She has judged the Caterpillar Poetry Prize and is a National Poetry Day Ambassador.