Share

Bookshop.org relaunches ‘Read It Forward’ charity drive with major author support

Bookshop.org is delighted to bring back its popular charitable initiative Read It Forward, in an expanded partnership with BookTrust and Scottish Book Trust, with 10 per cent of every children’s book sale in February 2025 (including pre-orders) donated to the charities, while also supporting independent bookshops.

Top children’s authors will once again throw their support behind the charitable drive, with new Ambassadors for 2025 including:

  • Actor, comedian, TV presenter and author of Evenfall: The Golden Linnet Alexander Armstrong
  • Multi-award-winning author and illustrator (for writers including Julia Donaldson) Catherine Rayner
  • Beloved children’s TV presenter and author of the Dino Dad series Andy Day
  • The Week Junior Book Award winning Serena Patel
  • Carnegie Medal nominated Nadine Aisha Jassat

This year’s campaign comes amidst a worrying decline in children’s reading habits in the UK. BookTrust’s research reveals that fewer than one in three of 10–11-year-olds in England really enjoy reading.

Meanwhile, children’s laureate Frank Cottrell Boyce used his inaugural ‘Reading Rights Summit’ in Liverpool last month to urge parents and carers to read to children more often, citing new research from BookTrust which shows that ‘six in 10 parents and carers of 0 to seven year-olds wish they had known earlier just how important it is to read and share stories regularly with their children, and wish they had started doing so sooner’.

The aim of Read It Forward is to inspire a love of reading in the next generation, with the money raised by Bookshop.org going towards children’s reading charities BookTrust and Scottish Book Trust’s work in providing access to reading support to children from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds.

Last year’s Read It Forward recorded double digit year on year sales of children’s and YA titles on Bookshop.org, with the proceeds going to over 1,000 families, bringing books to children who need them the most.

The 2025 charity drive comes amid a flurry of new children’s book releases in February, including: Sam Sedgman’s The Forbidden Atlas; Tom Percival’s Squirrel and Duck; Debi Gliori’s Come What May; Nizrana Farook’s Eid for Nylah, and much more!

Customers are also encouraged to place their pre-orders for some of the biggest children’s titles for the first half of 2025, including Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s The Blockbusters and Chris Riddell’s A Mermaid’s Diary, Jessie Burton’s Hidden Treasure, Julia Donaldson’s Gozzle (illustrated by Sara Ogilvie), and Hiba Noor Khan’s The Line They Drew Through Us.

here.

A comprehensive toolkit, including social media assets, is available here. Follow the latest developments on social media using the hashtag #ReadItForward.

You may also like...