Bookbug - a Julia Donaldson book for every P1 child

Julia Donaldson and Dillon Ryan (5) from Lochside primary School in Angus, celebrate the gifting of Julia’s award-winning book, What the Ladybird Heard, to every P1 child in Scotland, through Scottish Book Trust’s Bookbug programme. It was also announced at the event that Julia has agreed to become patron of the Bookbug book gifting programme. 

Scottish Book Trust has announced that it will gift a free book to every P1 child in Scotland this November as part of its Bookbug programme, an early year’s initiative that aims to give every child in Scotland a lifelong love of books. 60,000 copies of What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson, winner of the 2010 Scottish Children's Book Awards, have been distributed to classrooms around the country.

Children entering P1 should already have received three free packs of books from Bookbug at 6 weeks, 18 months, and three years, and so should be familiar with the programme, formerly known as Bookstart. Primary One is the final intervention point.

Scottish Book Trust has also announced that multi-award winning author and Children’s Laureate, Julia Donaldson, has agreed to be patron of the Bookbug programme. Donaldson, who was born in London but now lives in Glasgow, is most famous for her best-selling picture book, The Gruffalo, which was made into an Oscar-nominated animated film last year. To date she has written 160 books.

More information: 

BookbugSessions take place at local libraries or community groups. These are free, fun-filled story and rhyme sessions for 0-4-year-olds.

Teacher resources to support the gifting of What the Ladybird Heard, including posters, games and fun ideas based on themes in the book, are available to download from Scottish Book Trust’s website.

A video of Julia reading What the Ladybird Heard is also available.

Bookbug's first anniversary

Bookbug, Scottish Book Trust's Early Years Programme in which free picture books are distributed to every child in Scotland at certain points of their development, celebrated its first anniversary today with thousands of children taking part in hundreds of free events across the country on the theme of The Great Outdoors. As part of the celebrations, it was announced that one of the books to be distributed was created by a Home-Start Family group in Renfrewshire in collaboration with Scottish Book Trust’s Early Years Writer in Residence, Apple Pie ABC author Alison Murray.The picture book, entitled Little Mouse, is the beautifully illustrated story of a little girl who loves sharing books with her mother. The picture below shows Alison (centre) with parents from the group.

PS update - some later coverage of this event.