Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
SPECIAL PRICE: Just £9.99 for your next 8 magazines
Subscribe today
Opinion

Paul McNamee: This is why words matter

Jane Beaton raised over £25,000 in 70 days to get a copy of The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris into every primary school in Scotland. And her incredible achievement stirred something

Child reading Harry Potter book

It started as spur of the moment decision. A woman called Jane Beaton was so taken by The Lost Words, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’ book about disappearing words from nature, that she wanted to get a copy into every primary school in Scotland.

Using crowdfunding, Beaton, clearly a determined woman, set about raising £18,000 to get the book to all 2,681 schools. They raised over £25,000 within 70 days. Beaton is now aiming to go beyond primary schools.  It was a remarkable, noble plan, and an incredible achievement.

And Beaton has stirred something. There are similar initiatives in Wales and many English counties too. The book has grown.

The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
41MDrRC5GML
Jane Beaton's extraordinary campaign has resulted in a copy of The Lost Words heading to every primary school in Scotland

Macfarlane, one of Britain’s greatest nature writers and a regular contributor to The Big Issue, has said he and illustrator Morris were “overwhelmed” by the response. That’s hardly surprising. Their book is in the vanguard of a noteworthy double change.

First, the aim of the book, to reintroduce nature words that were being lost from a generation of children as other words competed and pushed them aside, is connecting and working. And – more tellingly –they are showing the wonderful, visceral and sometimes life-changing power of books. When a book connects it opens up something that never closes.

World Book Day is this week. It’s a construct, of course, but it’s an important one. It aims to encourage potential readers wherever they are.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

Frequently, for many, access to books  and their cost is an issue. It is why we at The Big Issue started our Big Books Giveaway. We invited groups across Britain who were doing incredible things in reading groups for people at a range of levels –from preschool to adult literacy organisations – to get in touch, tell us what was needed, and we then tried to get those books to them. We’ve sent out around 1,000. I’m very proud of this. All of those groups told us how important it was to have books in hands, how in simple ways the tactile nature of new books brought a physical joy, one that many would not have enjoyed before. They told us how owning a book for some people – including many children who had never owned one before – could recalibrate everything.

rosen_embed
Celebrated author Michael Rosen turns delivery man for the Big Books Giveaway at London's Ark Burlington Danes Primary Academy

In Britain there is still a curious suspicion of book reading, that is somehow lofty and a bit elitist. This is the very greatest codswallop. Books change lives. Early literacy benefits increase life chances that can help people move out of poverty, and can aid health and wellbeing. And books – and this is over often overlooked as we try to justify reading on more serious grounds – are fun to be inside.

So read. Just read.

Join The Ride Out Recession Alliance

The Ride Out Recession Alliance (RORA) will develop and implement practical steps and solutions to prevent families losing their homes, and help people remain in employment.

Learn More
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

READER-SUPPORTED SINCE 1991

Reader-supported journalism that doesn’t just report problems, it helps solve them.

Recommended for you

View all
Mental health support while I was in care wasn’t perfect – but now children are being turned away
Boy wearing backpack
Jack Smith

Mental health support while I was in care wasn’t perfect – but now children are being turned away

The fall of Angela Rayner emphasises the rise in power of property ownership
John Bird

The fall of Angela Rayner emphasises the rise in power of property ownership

What would Britain be like with Donald Trump as prime minister?
Donald Trump
Your view

What would Britain be like with Donald Trump as prime minister?

Why throw away clothes? You could go to a repair cafe to get them fixed instead
A person mending clothes
John Rose

Why throw away clothes? You could go to a repair cafe to get them fixed instead

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue