Westbourne Bookshop has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £2,000 to provide a copy of The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris to every school in Bournemouth & Poole.
There are 85 schools in Bournemouth and Poole that work with 3 to 16 year olds, which would be the targeted destination for these illustrated books.
The book takes twenty nature words which have been falling out of use amongst children – such as adder, kingfisher and bramble – and brings them back to life through the magical paintings of Jackie Morris and the ‘spell poems’ of Robert Macfarlane. Named as “Children’s Book of the Year” in the British Book of the Year Awards, this is believed to catch the imagination of all who read it.
The target of £2000 should allow the crowdfunder to make sure that children in Bournemouth and Poole have the opportunity to experience what this book has to offer, by which children would be delighted and inspired.
This follows a similar campaign last year which has successfully provided copies of The Lost Words to schools in the Dorset County Council area.
The project is inspired by Jane Beaton’s wonderful campaign to get a copy of The Lost Words into every primary school in Scotland. The Lost Words was created by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris in 2017 to celebrate the once-common nature words which had been dropped from the Oxford Junior Dictionary some ten years before – words such as acorn, wren, starling and dandelion.
The bookshop offers many rewards in aid of Crowdfunder appeal. For further details and donation, visit the page www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-lost-words-for-bournemouth-poole-schools.
