We set up the Young Reviewers’ Club in the summer of 2026 to help encourage a lifelong love of books and reading in slightly reluctant readers aged between 5 and 14. We applied to Penguin Random House to help us fund this project as they were looking for independent bookshops in the UK to design and deliver community initiatives that helped to promote reading for fun in 2026: The National Year of Reading.

We thought that the idea of getting reluctant younger readers from our local community to come in a bookshop once a month for six months to choose a book to read for fun (separate to what they would have to read at school) would develop confidence in younger children and introduce them to the pleasure of selecting a book that they feel would be of interest to them. There are no barriers to selection, the books can be fiction, factual or picture books - whatever the reader finds most interesting. To further break down any barriers to reading, we used the Penguin Random House funding to provide the books for free - meaning that 50 children from local schools and families get to pick and keep a book a month for six months between June and December 2026. There was just one thing they had to do - leave a review of the book they had finished to receive the next free book. We felt that the idea of writing a review of each book, which would be used in the shop by our other customers, would help children see that their opinions count and to develop a greater sense of ownership about the books they read and recommend.

Below are some of the brilliant reviews we have received so far.