Wild Justice’s Books for Schools Project
In spring 2020, Wild Justice decided to supply schools and libraries with some books, choosing titles relevant to wildlife and conservation. Little did we know how challenging that would be with the pandemic emerging! However, with lots of patience and effort, we persevered.
For our first project, we focussed on schools and libraries in areas proximate to driven grouse moors; supplying free copies of Sky Dancer and Eagle Warrior by the wonderful Gill Lewis, and Inglorious Twelfth by our own Mark Avery. In this year we supplied 395 books to 39 libraries and 41 schools.
The following year we completed this endeavour again; this time opening up further and focussing on community and voluntary libraries (including one on the Isle of Man). We wanted to support these due the strains of the ongoing pandemic on volunteer staff, plus they offer a wider range resource – they’re invaluable places. To compliment, we also selected community and rural schools, for similar reasons.
We had such a positive response to the 3 titles in 2020, we chose to offer these again, and in 2021, we supplied 405 books again to 41 schools and 39 libraries.
For 2023 and 2024 we decided to throw this project open to our newsletter subscribers and see what happened. What a response we received with nearly 400 nominations – outstanding!
We had to narrow this down a bit, so we selected schools according to a couple of factors. Firstly, schools in England were selected by the highest pupil premium rates – all of which were over 50%. For Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where such data doesn’t exist, schools were instead selected to reflect a broad geographic distribution across each country.
This time we chose to offer 6 titles:
- Chris Packham & Megan McCubbin Back to Nature
- Ollie Olanipekun & Nadeem Perera Flock Together: Outsiders
- Jess French Book of Brilliant Bugs
- Dara McAnulty Diary of a Young Naturalist
- Gill Lewis Eagle Warrior & Swan Song
The 2023/24 project will be completed this month and we’re delighted to share the news that 97 schools across the UK (including a school on the Isle of Man) will receive 2 copies of each title – that’s 1,164 books!
We remain sincerely grateful to our wonderful supporters, who not only fund this project, but this time have given the opportunity to so many worthy schools and most importantly, young people, access to these titles – thank you!