Our top 10 tips to encourage young readers:

• Get in there early. At just 3 months old a baby can see pictures and will enjoy the sound of your voice reading. Making books a part of a routine early on should make it easier to just keep on reading.
• Read together. If you’re reading the same book together, bring it to life by talking about the characters e.g. ‘what would xxx do now?’ and so on. When they’re older, just take time out to both snuggle down with a good book each and relax together.
• Check out popular titles, recommended reads and reviews – it needs to be a good book if they’re to enjoy it!
• Link books to other interests. Often it can be a bit trickier to get boys into reading and authors and publishers are trying to address this by bringing out themed fiction to attract them. So, for example, for football mad fans you can try Tom Palmer‘s football academy series.
• A trip to the cinema or renting a DVD is always fun, so pick a film that could spark an interest by going for films based on books. Think Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, the Narnia films, Spiderwick Chronicles, Lord of the Rings – the list is endless, and all have lots of great books to be reading.
• Make outings to the book shop or library fun. Look forward to it, don’t rush your time there and give a free reign on a few book choices. This is especially the case in the library when the books are free – what does it matter that they’ve picked a book on snakes of the world if they’ve never shown an interest before?! The point is, they picked it.
• For older children, get them as interested in the author as they are in the books. Authors are often up there now with top celebrities, and with social networking sites, it’s never been easier to connect with your favourite author. By adding on Facebook or following on Twitter, you feel more connected during the writing of a new title and get to know when the new releases are due out.
• If books aren’t doing it, what about comics? An avid Beano reader is still a reader and sooner or later, a book’s bound to be picked up!
• An obvious and easy one – they can stay up later if they’re reading. Staying up late is great when you’re young (at what age does it change so the goal becomes getting more sleep??!), and winding down to sleep from a book tends to be far easier than winding down from jumping around on a Wii!
• A shameless plug – get them joining the Bookbabblers. We read books together, have a community springing up to talk about what we’re reading, share our reviewed books with each other, include author Q&A’s, and encourage members to ask the author questions, and most of all LOVE reading.