Libraries in the West Midlands to share £124,761 to promote children’s reading.

 The Department of Culture, Media and Sport, in conjunction with Wolfson Libraries Challenge Fund,on 31st July announced that 10 libraries in the West Midlands are to share an award of £124, 761 over the next 12 months. The funds called ‘Caring with Books’ are to promote reading and enable work with children in public care and foster families.

 West Midlands Arts and The Library Partnership – West Midlands, worked as a partnership to enable work to take place with young people across the region, specifically in areas where exposure to books and reading would make a real cultural and educational difference to young people’s lives.

 ‘Caring with Books’ is a consortium initiative between 10 public library authorities in the West Midlands, West Midlands Arts Board and The Libraries Partnership – West Midlands and intends to target foster carers, public carers and children in public care ( aged 0-18) across the region. It aims to develop networks amongst foster carers, librarians, Social Services and public care home managers.

 A recent initiative, ‘Right to Read’ highlighted the difference that access to books and reading can make to the quality of life to children in care, and this award will continue to enhance the quality of life of these young people.

  Solihull Library and Caring with Books partners intend to role out the initiative from September. Jo Hand, North Area Manager said “This money will help us reach young readers in many of the most socially excluded areas of the community. Book reading can make a difference. We know one young reader in public care who told us how bored he was before he became aware of Caring with Books, he told us it had opened up a new world for him and how much enjoyment he was getting from books. This money will enable us to reach much more children like this.”

Midlands writer Michael Richardson was presented with the Sagittarius Prize 2001, awarded for a first published novel by an author over the age of sixty. He received the prize at the Society of Authors’ Annual Awards Party on Wednesday 6 June.

His winning novel, The Pig Bin, is a sprightly wartime comedy set in Birmingham and described by David Lodge as:

‘a wryly affectionate account of a diffident but artistically gifted Catholic schoolboy suffering the pains of puberty … Funny and touching by turns, it evokes that time and place with the authenticity of an old family snapshot.’

Time Out found it ‘a charming comic creation’ with ‘at least a smile on every page’.

Michael Richardson is a widely exhibited landscape artist. His poetry, short stories, essays and humorous pieces have appeared in publications including Private Eye and the Sunday Times. Since retiring as Head of Art at Lordswood Girls School, Birmingham, he has done voluntary work in a Romanian orphanage and, closer to home, campaigned to preserve the character of favourite local pubs. He is currently writing his second novel.

The judges of the Sagittarius Prize were Boyd Tonkin, Elspeth Barker and Christina Koning. Previous winners include A. Sivanandan and Brian O’Doherty (shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2000). The prize and a cheque for £2,000 were presented by Ian Hislop and Deborah Moggach.

The Pig Bin is published by Tindal Street Press, Birmingham’s only publisher of new fiction by writers from the region; its mission being to bring good contemporary fiction with a regional focus to a national readership. Three of its first four titles have now won national literary prizes.