The library should be the beating heart of your school, and the most valuable resource in it is - of course - the librarian! Sadly, however, sometimes children need more encouragement to come into the library. They may be reluctant or struggling readers, or reading may not be seen as ‘cool’ by their friends. Here are five steps to change this.

We are in boom times for children’s and YA literature, it seems, and more and more publishers are publishing books that are engaging for struggling readers to get them more motivated to read. I’ve often found it easier to ‘rev up’ the reading of those that have low literacy levels than to excite the interest of the ‘can read, won’t read’ crowd. It seems amazing, and a little incomprehensible, to me that young people who are able to access the fantastic imaginations of fab authors don’t show any inclination to do so - do they not realise that they could be fighting with ninjas in Chris Bradford’s books or travelling through magical realms with Garth Nix’s Lirael?