Read, read, read!

From this bird's eye view, I seem like Mother Hen here, with young ones ready to fly!  Anna, Lucy, Donya and Matthew are 2014 North East England regional winners for Read for My School's national competition. We are actually looking up into the dizzy heights of Newcastle's splendid new City Library where we met to celebrate the pleasures of reading and writing.

I enjoyed the 'buzz' at this gathering in Newcastle of participants, parents, teachers, librarians and Sophie Hallam from Booktrust. In Read for My School, Booktrust and the Pearson Foundation challenge young people in schools across England to read as many books as they can in two months. This year, at least 100,000 books will be donated to Book Aid International's Library in a Box programme.

A further element this year has been for participants to write a letter to children in Tanzania reflecting their love of reading and why it's important to them. The results will be announced soon and published on the Read for My School website here.

My message, as ever, is 'Read the world'. What better form of mind-travel? What better way to fly...