Children's Books Ireland

We need your vote! 📣 Children’s Books Ireland has been shortlisted for the 2026 Charities Institute Ireland People’s Choice Award. This award recognises the dedication, leadership and impact of individuals, teams and organisations across Ireland’s charity sector. Our mission is simple. Inspire a love of reading in children and young people and make Every Child a Reader. If you believe in what we do, we would really appreciate your vote. ⏰ Voting closes at 11.59pm on the 29th of October. Submit yours by clicking here: https://lnkd.in/d4ea6kg8

If you're looking for some frightfully good book recommendations for young readers ahead of the mid-term break, we've got you covered! 🎃 From spells and sorcery in rhyming verse to monstrous misadventures, our CEO Elaina Ryan visited the Ireland AM studio today with six books that are perfect for spooky season 👻 Check out these spellbinding stories or watch the segment back here ✨ https://lnkd.in/eud6WGqF

Leis an scoilbhliain nua faoi lán seoil, bronnadh 2,500 leabhar Gaeilge ar 50 bunscoil i 21 contae ar fud oileán na hÉireann! Is trí chomhpáirtíocht idir Leabhair Pháistí Éireann agus Foras na Gaeilge le tacaíocht ó Love Leabhar Gaeilge a seoladh an tionscnamh iontach seo. 🤝📚 Roghnaíodh na leabhair speisialta ón treoirleabhar léitheoireachta 'Léigh Leabhar Gaeilge' agus cuireadh pacáiste acmhainní ar fáil a chabhróidh le múinteoirí díriú ar na leabhair ina gcuid ceachtanna. Íoslódáil an pacáiste acmhainní saor in aisce ag ChildrensBooksIreland.ie & LoveLeabharGaeilge.ie With the new school year in full swing, 2,500 Irish language books have been gifted to 50 primary schools in 21 counties across the island of Ireland. This wonderful project was launched through a partnership between Children's Books Ireland and Foras na Gaeilge, with support from Love Leabhar Gaeilge. 🤝📚 The special books were chosen from the curated reading guide 'Léigh Leabhar Gaeilge' and a resource pack was provided which will help teachers to focus on the books as part of their lessons. Download your free resource pack at ChildrensBooksIreland.ie & LoveLeabharGaeilge.ie

Earlier this year we released The Children and young people’s reading in Ireland report 2026. One of our key findings was that 54% of parents cite digital devices as the biggest barrier they face when reading or sharing books with their children. At Children's Books Ireland, we welcome the opportunity to swap screen time for story time any chance we get! That's why we're so pleased to support CyberSafeKids with the #CyberBreak nationwide initiative that's happening next weekend. On Friday 16th October, join us and thousands of others in unplugging for a day! Whether that's a CyberBreak of 24 hours or a CyberByte of 12 hours, you can choose what suits you or your family best. For us, it's the perfect excuse to log out and get lost in a great book. You can register for CyberBreak today: https://lnkd.in/eKEiVCzc And don't forget, we've got hundreds of amazing book recommendations and resources to keep you and your young readers offline and entertained all year 'round. Discover your next great read on our website now 📚 https://lnkd.in/e8q4eK6b #DisconnectToReconnect 📚

‘The right book at the right time has the power to change the course of a child’s life.’ — Chris Haughton   In September we officially launched our major donor programme, The Story Makers’ Circle at an inspiring event in The Merrion Hotel, Dublin, where we were joined by some special voices in literature to share just how much the gift of reading for joy can mean for children and young people.   Chair of Children’s Books Ireland, Madeleine Keane, hosted an open conversation with Laureate na nÓg Chris Haughton; Stephen Daly, author and Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland at the Seamus Heaney Centre; and award-winning Irish novelist, short story writer and academic Belinda McKeon. Friends, supporters and new faces joined us for this intimate evening to explore how giving children the joy of reading gives them so much more than books.   Chris Haughton spoke about how books give children agency in a way screens often do not. Reading can be a powerful alternative to algorithm-driven content, because books allow children to choose, follow their own curiosity, and take ownership of their attention and imagination.   Belinda McKeon shared the powerful way that stories give children inner resources and, using examples from her own life with her children, demonstrated how a love of reading helps children develop self-knowledge, emotional resilience, imagination, and the ability to be with themselves – especially important in a world competing for their attention through devices.   Stephen Daly was passionate about the power of books to help children discover who they are. He emphasised how the right book can pull something hidden or unspoken into the light, giving young readers recognition, confidence, self-respect, and a sense of possibility.   Together, our speakers eloquently conveyed how important and life-changing reading can be for children, not just for literary and educational attainment, but for nurturing and promoting identity, agency, resilience, imagination, and gifting them lasting benefits that will support them to do well in life as adults.   If you believe, as we do, that every child deserves the life-changing power of reading, we warmly invite you to consider joining The Story Makers’ Circle. Your support will help us bring more books, more stories, and more moments of connection to children and young people across Ireland. https://lnkd.in/dTGA3Pc2

Last month, we welcomed pre-service and in-service teachers and public librarians to our Bookmeet in Waterford Education Support Centre. We were delighted to welcome 44 teachers, student teachers and librarians for a day dedicated to inspiring a love of reading, writing and creativity in primary schools. Across a series of engaging workshops, authors Dave Rudden, Eve McDonnell, Olivia Hope and Sadhbh Devlin shared practical ideas, approaches and plenty of inspiration to inspire creativity for all levels across the primary school curriculum. From equipping teachers with sets of creative blueprints to offering practical and pragmatic guides to using picturebooks in junior classrooms, attendees were given tools to help inspire a love of reading and creative writing in primary school students. Later in the day, Dr. Siobhán Morrissey from Galway University launched the Literary Foundations report. A fascinating insight on pre-service teachers’ knowledge of children’s books. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, to our fantastic workshop facilitators, and to Waterford Education Support Centre for being such a welcoming and collaborative partner. Also to our very own Dr. Becky Long for facilitating the day's events. Bookmeet was made possible thanks to the generous support of The Irish American Partnership who empower the next generation by equipping teachers and community leaders with the resources they need to educate and inspire. We are incredibly grateful to them, and to everyone who joined us for the event. Here’s to excellent books and Reading for Joy 📚

Some moments from the Children's Books Ireland International Conference 2026. The theme of this year’s Conference was POWER. From feeling powerless to being empowered, our speakers certainly embraced the many ways in which this idea can present itself. It was a weekend of dynamic discussion, insights and connecting with our peers. A huge thank you to our speakers and attendees for a PARFUL (looking at you, Northern Irish panel!) weekend.   Many thanks to bricfeasta/tea & coffee break sponsors COMHAR , Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, Clár na Leabhar Gaeilge, Foras na Gaeilge, Magic Cat Publishing and AIS, for keeping our attendees fed and caffeinated throughout the weekend. A very special thanks to IBBY UK for our beautiful display of Children's Books from and about Palestine.   Thank you to Eleanor on the desk for helping things run smoothly, our ISL interpreters Aoife and Leah, booksellers The Gutter Bookshop and An Siopa Leabhar for making sure attendees bags were well weighted down, the staff at the Light House Cinema, and of course our own team for working tirelessly throughout the weekend.   Thank you to Guppy Books, Paper Lanterns, Hachette UK, Mercier Press, (L.J.) Lindsay Jane Sedgwick, Little Island Books, Futa Fata, An tSnáthaid Mhór, The O'Brien Press Ltd and Macmillan for our stacked delegate bags. Just when we thought our to-be-read piles couldn’t get any bigger!   And before we sign off on #CBIConf26, we would like to extend a massive thank you to our incredible Artist & Programme Manager, Aoife Murray. As many of you may know, this was Aoife’s final time organising the Conference. Every year, we get such great feedback on the choice of speakers, the seamless flow and the incredible organisation involved in bringing the Conference to life. And every year, we thank our lucky stars we have Aoife Murray on the team. Aoife, we wish you the best in your future adventures. Thank you for many, many great Conference memories! 🥲 📸 Ruth Ní Eidhin

Children's Books Ireland is launching The Story Makers' Circle today, and we could not be prouder to have played a part in bringing it to life. Children's Books Ireland is the national charity championing every child's right to develop a love of reading. The Story Makers' Circle is their new giving circle: a way for people and organisations to make an annual gift that reaches the children who need it most, right across the island of Ireland. What that gift makes possible is tangible. It puts books into the hands of children experiencing homelessness, brings authors into schools to spark young imaginations, delivers reading programmes to children in hospital, and builds diverse, inclusive libraries so every child can see themselves on the shelf. We had the privilege of working alongside the team at Children's Books Ireland to shape the fundraising strategy behind the Circle and help bring it to launch. Seeing it go live today, and knowing what it will mean for children and their futures, is exactly why we do this work. If your organisation is looking for a meaningful way to give this year, this is a beautiful place to begin. #StoryMakersCircle #EveryChildAReader #ChildrensBooksIreland

Today’s PISA results shows that Ireland’s 15-year-olds continue to perform strongly across the domains of science, reading and mathematics compared to their OECD and EU counterparts. However, scores in Ireland have fallen across all three domains since PISA 2022, with reading seeing the most significant drop. In reading, gender differences remain, and students attending non-DEIS schools outperformed their peers in DEIS schools by 48 points on average. Reading is a basic skill required for active citizenship and democracy, for critical thinking in the face of misinformation and disinformation, and for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Access to quality, contemporary, diverse books is not a nice-to-have, but an essential tenet of a modern education system which will equip all learners for the future. Children’s Books Ireland is calling on Government to introduce a permanent school library funding stream in Budget 2027, supported by a functioning primary school library system, with adequate supports for schools to fully engage and promote reading to all students. To read A Reading Revolution for Ireland: investing in school libraries, click the link below 🔗. https://lnkd.in/dwaD7D4T