The Children’s Book Project is a lean, grassroots,volunteer-powered partner of CPT, collecting new and gently used books from families and publishers and redistributing them to children and young people growing up in poverty. Every book donated to them finds itself in a new home, with a new reader and with the capacity to shape future life outcomes.
Now the literacy charity have formed a nationwide partnership with Asda, which will enable Asda customers across the UK to donate pre-loved children’s books in-store, for onward gifting to families this Christmas time and beyond.
Book poverty has a measurable impact on children’s social and emotional development, as well as their education outcomes. Research has shown that reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s life outcomes. However, 1-in-8 disadvantaged children in the UK have no books of their own at home and by age 11, those from book-poor homes lag 12 months behind their peers in language/literacy development.
CPT provided a small grant in 2024, that enabled the charity to gift 7,200 books to 1.200 children across three London primary schools, increasing their access to high quality,relevant and interesting reading material to enjoy and share at home. Each child had an opportunity to independently select at least six books of their own without encountering any of the usual financial barriers. This helped the schools to build their wider literacy approach and cement a reading for pleasure culture, improving outcomes for children.
Kate Morgan-Evans, from the charity, in reflecting on the CPT grant said:
“Our events not only put books into the homes of children who need them, they create a legacy; building communities of young readers who will continue to motivate and incentivise reading for pleasure in the longer term.”
The Charles Plater Trust is encouraging all its supporters to donate at the accessible book donation points in Asda’s stores, knowing that each book will be gifted to children that need them most. For a full list of donation points visit https://childrensbookproject.co.uk/families-and-individuals/.
In addition, the charity is running a match funding campaign in early December and if Charles Plater Trust supporters are interested in donating, all funds received between 3-10 December via this link will be doubled!
https://donate.biggive.org/campaign/a056900002TPTc6AAH?c=88526
Philippa Gitlin, chair ofthe CPT grant making committee, said:
“Our grant to the Children’s book Project just goes to show that evensmall amounts of money can reap large rewards. All children should be able to access a bookwithout the cost being a barrier. We encourage all Catholics to get behind thisgreat initiative for social justice.”
