Launching our ‘Young Reviwers’ Club’

Today, 19 June 2026, we are launching our big new community initiative focused on reluctant readers aged between 4 and 14 years old - Teasel & Skylark’s Young Reviewers’ Club.

This is going to be a six-month reading and review-writing programme designed to encourage reluctant readers to read for fun and find enjoyment in selecting books and discussing them with other young readers. The Young Reviewers’ Club aims to remove any financial barriers to selecting books to read for pleasure, build confidence and encourage creativity through the creation of book reviews, and help children feel a sense of ownership over their reading lives by giving them a platform for their opinions on the books they read. Hopefully this initiative will help reluctant readers to develop a lifelong love of books and reading.

We are now looking for 50 reluctant readers from our local community aged between 4 and 14, who would benefit from being a member of the Young Reviewers’ Club. We have written to 9 local schools who we are asking to nominate 5 readers each. That leaves 5 places to fill, which we want to come from our customers who have supported us in our first year of business. If you would like to nominate a young reader who you feel may benefit from this initiative please let us know through the shop - we only need to know a first name and age (no other details will be collected) and why they would benefit from the scheme. (If selected, the child must be available to visit our shop in Dorchester with a parent or guardian in July to select their first free book, and then call in monthly between August-December with a parent or guardian to select up to 5 more free books - one for every review provided.)

Here is how the Young Reviewers’ Club will work

Each member of The Young Reviwers’ Club will receive their first free book in July - this has to be through a visit to the shop accompanied by a parent or guardian. One of the main objectives of the club is to encourage browsing for books and selecting the book they would most like to read.

The free book can be up to the value of £10. (Parents or guardians can make up the difference if the book is more than £10 - ie, an £11.99 would be available for £1.99 - and no change will be given if the book is less than £10.)

All we ask is that each member writes a review of the book when they have read it and send it to us. The review doesn’t necessarily have to be positive but it should say what the reader liked or didn’t like about the book so that other young readers can use the review to decide whether they would like to read the same book. The review can either be brought into the shop or sent to us by email by a parent or guardian.

This process can be repeated another 5 times between August and December, meaning that each member can claim up to 6 free books (up to the value of £10) in exchange for reviews - one each month.

Each member of The Young Reviewers’ Club will receive a membership card showing only their first name, age, and the school they attend. The cards will be stamped every time a book is selected and review given.

The members’ reviews will be displayed in the shop and/or on our website and social media channels (only facebook and instagram). The reviews will be credited to each member using their first name only, their age and the school they attend. We want to encourage members to get into the habit of visiting a bookshop to select books for fun and to see their reviews ‘in action’ - to build their confidence and to see that their views matter and are helping other young readers make decisions about what to read.

There will be an event to mark the end of the event sometime in December - giving the members and their parents or guardians and teachers the opportunity to celebrate what they have achieved and be presented with a certificate for completing the six-month reading programme. (More details of this event will be provided in due course.)

We are able to launch this community initiative thanks to Penguin Random House and we want to say a huge thank you to them for selecting our project to help fund through their Children’s Bookshop Grant for the National Year of Reading. You may have seen in the local media recently that not only are we one of only 20 bookshops in the UK to be awarded the status of Bookshop Champion for 2026 (doing our bit to raise the profile of the National Year of Reading) but we were also successful in our bid for a Children's Bookshop Grant from Penguin Random House, who chose 80 projects across the country, including ours, from hundreds of applications. We are proud to be able to use this special funding to launch this project designed to help and encourage young readers read for pleasure.