Today’s guest blog post is by author Lucy Beresford, on the newly-launched Refuge for Books initiative.
I don’t need to tell you how special books are for kids. They’re portals to another world, full of fun and adventure and learning. I can remember the joy of being read to as a child, or being invited to read aloud. And I still get a buzz, reading to a child.
Sadly, some women and their children are denied these simple pleasures. This is because there are women in the UK today fleeing abusive marriages, leaving with their kids often in the middle of the night, in desperation, sometimes just in the clothes they stand up in.
Books might simply be too awkward to carry in haste. And so once they arrive at a shelter run by Refuge, the domestic violence charity, such women often lack the means to distract their kids, or enjoy the comfort of reading to them.
This is where you come in. Last year I set up The Kindness Club, to prompt random acts of kindness in the UK. Under this umbrella, I’ve now set up a Refuge for Books, to create a library for a Refuge shelter in London.
I’m asking anyone who loves books to send me one. Readers, publishers, authors, please send me a new or good-as-new copy to my Refuge for Books:
PO Box 72287, London SW1P 9LA (please don’t send them to Refuge direct – they don’t have the space).
Send your copy to me, with love, and I will make sure it becomes part of the library. Your kindness is much appreciated – by me, but also by the unknown women and kids currently craving something to read.
