Dorothy Amery Readers Awards

Dorothy Amery Reader Awards

I am writing to let you know about a fantastic opportunity for the children at your school!

A recent survey found that over 380,000 children in the UK do not own their own book and with your help, at Bookbugs and Dragon Tales, we would like to make this number smaller.

As educators you know that books have the power to transform children’s reading skills, enjoyment and mental well-being, as well as raising aspirations and widening participation. When we opened the doors to Bookbugs and Dragon Tales, we wanted this to be at the heart of what we did, as Dan and I are both products of opportunities such as these.

Thanks to a generous donation from a friend of the bookshop, we are pleased to announce we will be launching The Dorothy Amery Reader Awards in late 2021.

Dorothy Amery was a Primary School teacher and English co-ordinator with a huge love of stories and storytelling. Her favourite part of the day was reading stories to the children. She placed enormous value of the importance of reading and the ways in which it can unite and inspire.

In 2019 Dorothy sadly passed away and while we did not get the chance to meet her, we were fortunate enough to meet her husband Alistair. Since the day we met, we have wanted to work together to ensure a legacy of reading among children in her name.

So, this is where you come in…

As a teacher in my former life, I understand the challenges faced by young people and educators today, with many families ‘Just About Managing’ and despite often working many jobs, not always having enough for extra. The Dorothy Amery Reader Awards aims to help support these children through the gift of books and celebration of hard work and achievement.

We would love it if you were able to nominate children from your school who would work for 1 year with us as part of our Review Team. This would mean that we would receive a review of a book, photo of them reading or picture related to the book to display in the shop and in exchange, the child would attend an award ceremony at the shop and the ability to select £50 worth of books for them to take home and keep. We have the capacity for 30 children across Norfolk and Suffolk to be part of the review team and winners of the Dorothy Amery Reader Awards.

We would be enormously grateful if you could recommend up to 5 children from your school who you think would fit the bill. There is no age restriction so from Pre-school right up to Year 13. We understand that GDPR means that you are unable to share too much information but if you are able to give the first name, school, year group and a sentence about why you think owning books would make a difference, we will contact you once we have created the final list.

Many thanks

Leanne & Dan

Bookbugs and Dragon Tales

 

The Dorothy Amery Readers Awards aims to put books in the hands of children who wouldn’t normally have access. We will set this up so that our other customers and friends can contribute. Some of which have already contributed and many others have enquired. Proving what we already knew. That there is a real desired to contribute to members of our community that are disadvantaged.

More on this to follow