Time to turn over new leaf?

With only a couple of days left until Christmas, most parents have finished shopping for their kids’ presents – indeed, many will now be wrapped and ready to be put out under the Christmas tree.

Is there a book among them? In hundreds of Sunderland homes there won’t be.

New figures released by the National Literacy Trust reveal that more than 3,000 Sunderland children do not have a book of their own.

Statistics compiled by the charity, which is leading the Read North East campaign, show that one in eight of the most disadvantaged children in the region are without a book.

Further analysis revealed that 29,674 schoolchildren across the North East, aged eight to 18, don’t own a book.

The figures could be shrugged off as a sign of the times. After all, many see books as old-fashioned and not half as entertaining for children as social media or computer games etc.

However the report also found that children who say they don’t own a single book have much poorer educational outcomes than their bookowning peers.

Children who own a book are 15 more times likely to read above the level expected for their age than their peers who don’t read a book (28.8% compared to 1.9%).

Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, said: “Books have the power to transform children’s lives, which is why it is so alarming to discover that almost 30,000 children in the North East don’t have a single book to call their own.

“Getting books into the hands of children and helping them discover a love of reading is at the very heart of our campaign.

Mams and dads, the shops are still open ...