Books v Screens: Why Every School Needs a Library (Katherine Rundell)

Only one in three children in the UK enjoy reading in their spare
time – the lowest rate recorded in 20 years, according to a
survey for the National Literacy Trust.


Best-selling children’s author Katherine Rundell, whose books
include Impossible Creatures and The Explorer, says that
represents a crisis of reading which will make it harder to
tackle disinformation.


She thinks every school should have a library that is subject to
an Ofsted inspection and literacy should be included in teacher
training programmes to try to tackle the decline in children
reading for pleasure.


Amol and Katherine also discuss why Donald Trump’s re-election as
US president led her to donate all the royalties from US sales of
The Golden Mole (published under the title Vanishing Treasures in
America) to climate charities.


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Episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan are released every Thursday
and you can also watch them on BBC iPlayer:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002f1d0/radical-with-amol-rajan


Amol Rajan is a presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.
He is also the host of University Challenge on BBC One. Before
that, Amol was media editor at the BBC and editor at The
Independent.


Radical with Amol Rajan is a Today Podcast. It was made by Lewis
Vickers with Izzy Rowley. Digital production was by Gabriel
Purcell-Davis. Technical production was by James Piper. The
editor is Sam Bonham. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.