Book selection
Booktrust aims to empower people of all ages and abilities by giving them confidence and choices about reading.
We want individuals of all backgrounds to benefit from the wellbeing that a rich and positive engagement in reading and writing can provide. We aim to inspire everyone to enjoy books, reading and writing and the lifelong benefits that they bring.
Booktrust brings together independent panels of experts to select books for inclusion in its national bookgifting programmes: Bookstart, Booktime, Booked Up and Letterbox Club.
The selection process
The Letterbox Club is aimed at a specific group of children and so differs from the other Booktrust bookgifting programmes in its criteria for selecting books.
The panel aims to select the most appropriate and best-written, illustrated and designed books for our packs; books that capture interest and imagination and that stimulate a dialogue between parent/carer and their young children, and also between children and their peers.
The books selected include a mix of different genres to give the children access to a wide selection of material, including: fairy tales, classic and contemporary stories, picture books, novelty/joke books, poetry, non-fiction and audio books.
We try to select books that reflect the diversity of life in Britain. Subjects which might cause offence will be avoided. Some titles from previous years will be reselected if they have proved to be highly popular and the panel opts to keep them on the list.
Booktrust negotiates costs with individual publishers and sometimes a slight specification change is agreed in order to keep costs within budget or to ensure that the artwork promotes positive images of diversity and are, as far as possible, inclusive of all children. Publishers have been hugely supportive of Booktrust’s bookgifting programmes.
Booktrust reserves the right to use replacement items/books, subject to availability.
Book Selection 2012
The Letterbox Club 2012 book selection meeting was held at Book House in September, 2011. The selection panel met to select possible titles for all four Letterbox parcels available in 2012.
Every second year, Letterbox Club invites a range of experts to be part of the panel - people who work with children's books, such as librarians, publishers, academics and authors, or with looked-after children, such as foster carers and education professionals.
The meeting was co-chaired by Marian Keen-Downs, Booktrust's Head of Targeted Programmes; and Rose Griffiths, Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Leicester, School of Education, who is also Letterbox Club's founder.
The panel was made up of:
Tony Bradman - Author/Editor
Sue Walters - Learning and Participation Coordinator, Seven Stories, Newcastle
Lucy Love - Development Manager, Children & Young People, Enfield Libraries
Margaret Dunn - Head Teacher and Foster Carer, Northern Ireland
