The Bookaboo story

Lucy Goodman, creator of Bookaboo:

"Bookaboo was created both as a piece of entertainment and as a campaign for children and grown-ups to encourage the sharing of picture books with each other. I’ve made many children’s programmes and wanted to combine my experience and love of this with the warm memories I have of being read to as a child, in a way that could enable television to have a positive effect on those that watched it....

"Four years ago, I learned that reading in the home with young children had almost halved since my childhood and discovered that only 16% of children share books today. What seemed extraordinary was that despite so many people seeming to know and understand how beneficial it was to children both socially and academically, the most recent poll by CiTV and Happy Films concluded that a mere 3% of fathers read to their children.

"I looked a little deeper. A lot more reading of research books followed, but it was really once I started talking that a picture began to emerge. I talked to professionals – Wendy Cooling who founded the Bookstart programme, Viv Bird, now Director of literacy charity Booktrust, Dr Anne Moir, geneticist and author of books such as Brain Sex and many others and then, well... I just got out there. I talked to friends, to neighbours, to taxi drivers, the AA man, the plumber who fixed my sink, parent groups, social workers, the list is endless.

The picture got clearer, and the clearer it got, the more Bookaboo as an idea formed. I needed a character both children and grown-ups would find cool and cute in equal measure. I needed this character to appeal especially to boys and I needed celebrities that an audience respect and can connect to. I needed to give those who didn’t feel so confident about sharing a book aloud the guts to give it a go and I needed to give the reading aloud image a bit of a makeover!

And so Bookaboo was born and I wait with baited breath to see if this rock puppy can achieve the huge task I have set him. If just one person, be it grandad, uncle, sibling or family friend picks up a picture book having never done so before, as a result of this series, I’ll feel extremely proud.

There was still one thing missing though. I needed to find a way that the series could benefit those children who weren’t as lucky as I was, as a child surrounded by picture books. I certainly didn’t have enough money to simply donate, but perhaps the series could, and so a partnership with a charity I hugely respect, Booktrust, headed up by a person I deeply admire, Viv Bird, was born. This partnership, along with Bookaboo’s other partners, will enable Bookaboo to donate 13,000 books to children under the age of 6 in care.

My aim is – and I know it’s not easy to pull off – that anyone who stands to gain out of Bookaboo contributes to facilitate book donations and events for these young children. This way, they too can benefit, experience and explore the hours of fun there are to be had from sharing picture books. If you want to help too, it’s really very simple: pick up a picture book and share it today!"

Lucy