Children’s Book Network packages reading in a way that encourages participation. Words are a two-way strategy. They have to go in – and bounce back. A reader is not a reader when they can answer ten questions and move on. True reading engages and absorbs. It promotes deep thinking and fires the imagination. It is for life. It is for a better life.

Children

We work with the most reading-vulnerable – children between ten and twelve who have little exposure to books or reading. If they can’t, or don’t read now, we have lost them as readers and failed to offer the opportunities and experiences that reading can bring.

Books

We have carefully curated our Reading Toolboxes to include only the best of South African and international books for children to read in our workshops, book clubs and at home.

Network

A global connection of people who care about children reading, and what that means for those children’s futures. From the funders to the facilitators, the network is built out of passion.

By Nicholas Maritz
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What's the Problem?

In South Africa 8 out of 10 children cannot read for meaning. If they never progress beyond this point – if they never learn to see reading as a crucial life skill and a key to imaginative thinking – they will never grow to their full potential. They will never experience the other worlds, the other ideas, the other lives that books can offer them.

What's the Solution?

Make reading important. Give books … and books … and more books to children who have none. Believe in our children. Listen to them. Encourage them. Show them that reading is the most important skill they will ever learn. Do it soon. They are waiting.