I love the Today programme during the Christmas period, when it has guest editors. Their choice of in depth subject matter is inspirational. First off was author and screenwriter, Frank Cottrell Boyce, on a subject dear to my heart – access to and the importance of books. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00268mh
He talked about books in a tactile way that gives joy. ‘A story can hold you in an embrace.’ He suggested that reading to your child is like a hug that will last the rest of your and his/her life. I am guilty of talking a lot about books for upward mobility because I wouldn’t be an author if I didn’t have access to a library as a child. It may seem that I’m forgetting the pleasure but the two are married. Michael Rosen, the famous children’s author, was the curator of stories at the Story Museum when I cast him away on Oxtopia. He told me that the evidence from everywhere in the world is that children who read for pleasure, do well academically. Read his castaway feature here:.Michael Rosen
I’m delighted that the Oxford Indie Book Fair is growing in size and in public awareness. Our aim is that books should be available to EVERYONE.Tomorrow the Today guest editor will be Professor Irene Tracey, the Vice Chancellor of Oxford University. She generously opened the Oxford Indie Book Fair in 2023.(Seen in the pic enjoying a joke with Korky Paul) Like Paterson Joseph, this year she represents what we want to stand for- inclusion and access to books for EVERYONE. Unlike previous Vice Chancellors, Irene was educated at a comprehensive school- Gosford Hill in Kidlington so she represents Town AND Gown. Most previous vice chancellors have been humanities graduates. Irene is a scientist. OXIB is about that kind of inclusion too – all knowledge, all genres for all ages. Books, art and illustration for knowledge but also for joy and lifelong friendship.
This year Paterson Joseph the actor and Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University opened the fair. He told me how he, like me, would not have had the career he has had without access to Willesden Library–Luton in my case.(See pic at the end) That is why I’m passionate about saving and creating libraries. In my memoir, there’s a chapter on how the illustrator Korky Paul helped us save 22 Oxfordshire Libraries from closure. At the memorial to broadcaster ,Bill Heine, the former Chair of OCC, Keith Mitchell told me that, when we invited him to tea, seeing us demonstrate the importance of libraries in the community helped change his mind . The Pied Piper Procession I organised was the novelist’s way – a case of Show not Tell. We didn’t lecture or hassle him but he had to listen while Korky read to the children. Here’s the chapter with the story :Chapter 30 The underestimated importance of libraries and reading
Korky is also patron of a project I initiated to build the first community Library in Musanda in west Kenya. We hope it will open at the end of 2025. As part of the project bringing our communities together, I produced Cosmic Cats – a book of stories by children from my village school and a school in west Kenya. The zoom launch linking the schools was filmed on South Today. You can watch it on this blog.
