What Books Can Do Behind Bars

Click here to read a full report about the wonderful work of Prison Reading Groups. We're proud to be able to help them-- thanks to all of you who make Give a Book possible.

Reading Groups and feeling good

The pleasures and power of Reading Groups are amongst many good things celebrated by The Reading Agency. Their Reading Groups for All describes again and again the sheer value of reading-- to cheer you up,  to challenge, to inspire and share. Give a Book gives books to Prison Reading Groups, to Maggie's Centres,  Age UK and anywhere else where reading makes a difference. We can only do it with your help, for which our heartfelt thanks. 

More news from inside...Chibundu Onuzo at a prison reading group.

Chibundu  Onuzo’s  The Spider King’s Daughter is a first novel of degrading poverty and fabulous wealth, laced with vigorous dialect, and set in her native Nigeria. Readers at an HMP were lucky to have an author visit from Chibundu Onuzo recently, organised by the Librarian. Support from Give a Book provided 25 copies of the novel for readers throughout the prison.
This was a lively and enjoyable event, with a large group of readers who had really engaged with the novel, and found its story of the relationship between a street hawker and a millionaire’s daughter fascinating and absorbing. It’s a novel which opens your eyes to the extremes of Nigerian society, from the Louboutins and swimming pool lifestyle of the super-rich to the subsistence level existence of the very poor.  There are fascinating glimpses of West African life – the food vendor who keeps pieces of fried meat in a secret compartment of her bra for favoured clients, the wealthy teenagers who are confident their fathers will pay someone clever to sit their entrance exams for Yale.
As well as facing really in-depth questions (at one time she said to one questioner, `You know this novel better than I do!’)  Chibundu Onuzo read several hilarious extracts featuring the `pidgin’ which makes this novel so distinctive. For those familiar with it – quite a few in the audience -  this sense of a known place was what made the novel such an enjoyable read; others, like me, found some of the dialogue strange at first. But it’s Chibundu Onuzo’s skill at dialogue which makes The Spider King’s Daughter so rich. And I learned quite a lot: that women in Nigeria are called `Aunty’; older women would be `Ma’; you never address your parents by their first names.  Conversation on topics like this went on long after the formal question and answer session was over, and Chibundu Onuzo stayed for a long time chatting with the audience.
All the book group members and other readers at the prison are really grateful to Chibundu for her visit and for providing such a lively afternoon.
The reading group is part of the Prison Reading Groups (PRG) project. Now please go back to Give a Book.

Reading to Live Well

The excellent Reader Organisation is having their third national conference on May 17th. Here's the info, and we encourage you to go-- because reading matters.

With the current national highlight on the value of reading for everyone, become part of a rapidly growing wellbeing movement: reading aloud together for pleasure.

The Reader Organisation’s third national conference:

Reading to Live Well

17^th May 2012, 9am – 5pm

British Library, London, NW1 2DB

DAY DELEGATE RATE: £199

Speakers include:

·         Dr Iona Heath, President of the Royal College of General Practioners

·         Jonathan Rose, Professor Jonathan Rose, William R Kenan Professor of History, Drew University, USA, and author of The Intellectual Life of The British Working Classes

·         Lemn Sissay, award-winning poet and the first to write for the Olympics 2012

Our Reading to Live Well conference is aimed at professionals working to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities – those commissioning, delivering, researching, referring or funding services – who want to learn how our pioneering project ‘Get Into Reading’ can help support service users in their recovery, improve the morale and motivation of staff involved and promote the importance of reading aloud together for pleasure.

“Get Into Reading is one of the most significant developments to have taken place in mental health practice in the last ten years.” Dr David Fearnley, Medical Director, Mersey Care NHS Trust (RCPsych ‘Psychiatrist of the Year 2009’)

“It’s like a door has opened and the light has come in.” Sue, full-time carer

Our pioneering ‘Get Into Reading’ project is delivered in all four corners of the UK, reaching people aged 3-103, in hospitals and care homes, libraries and GP surgeries, prisons and supermarkets.

“It’s given me a second chance. I feel my views are valued here.” Gary, probation centre resident and a non-reader

“I never knew this is what books were.” Ted, a literate non-reader, on reading with others

Our Reading to Live Well conference will showcase our Get Into Reading projects in London and across the UK..  We will also explain ‘how and why’ Get Into Reading works for readers and non-readers alike, and disseminate key findings of two recent research projects by the University of Liverpool on the impact of the Get Into Reading model on people with depression and dementia.

To book your place at the Reading to Live Well conference and become part of this growing movement, click here.