A British Childhood by Frank Cottrell-Boyce review – are we raising a bookless generation?

This clarion call about the impoverishment of children’s lives is also a reminder of the sheer magic of reading Every day, on my walk to work, I pass a primary school. A group of little people are being dropped off by parents. They are met at the gates by a teacher who greets them all by name before leading them up the steps to breakfast club. In the cold and dark of winter, with the school’s windows glowing invitingly, I sometimes envy these children their warm, welcoming cocoon. I thought of that daily scene often when reading this book, which is inspired by Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s time as Waterstones children’s laureate. During his laureateship he ran a campaign with the literary charity BookTrust called Reading Rights, addressing literacy inequality for children in poverty. It was prompted by the discovery that nearly half of children were arriving at school without having been read to. Many had no clue how books worked. They were trying to swipe rather than turn pages, or expand illustrations by pinching them with their fingers. Cottrell-Boyce, the author of children’s novels Millions and Cosmic among much else, is the ideal face for such a campaign. A longstanding sc