About Us

Give a Book is a UK registered charity, set up in 2011 in memory of writer and playwright Simon Gray, who loved to read and to share his reading.

Give a Book is dedicated to promoting books and the pleasure of reading in the hardest places. Our main work is in prisons, schools and with disadvantaged children.

Some of our projects include Books for First Nighters, Making it Up and Page to Picture. We also supply books and support for Prison Reading Groups, Book Clubs in Schools, and dictionaries for Reading Ahead.

In September 2017, Prison Reading Groups (PRG) became part of Give a Book. We work with PRG to supply books for Reading Groups and family reading initiatives in over 70 UK prisons.

We are grateful to Daunt Books for their partnership and support over the years.

What We Do

Give a Book works in a practical and targeted way, project by project, to help spread the pleasure of reading.

We promote books and the pleasure of reading in the hardest to reach places. Our core belief is that to pass on a good read – to give a book – is a transaction of lasting worth. We work in prisons, schools and with disadvantaged children and young people throughout the UK. This is at the heart of everything we do.

Our Impact Reports provide more details on what we do:

Why we are needed

“Children who don’t own a book of their own are nearly four times more likely to read below the average expected level for their age.”

National Literacy Trust

For further reading on the state of literacy in the UK and the effects that reading for pleasure can have, please have a look at our Reports page.