In an ideal world, the first steps towards introducing babies to books take place at home. But what happens when a child is growing up in a home far from their own country, a home where English is not spoken as the first language, a home where there are no books? As library outreach worker to Sure Start Townfield in Hillingdon, London, I have met many such children.
Of the 60 million people living in the UK, one in every 12 was born overseas, and the recent annual school census shows that one in every five schoolchildren is now from an ethnic minority. Britain is a highly multicultural society and my area of London is no exception, with thriving Asian, Somali and Eastern European communities and, due to its proximity to Heathrow Airport, a growing number of refugees.
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