I mentioned last week that the UK government had eliminated its funding for literacy charity Booktrust with the new budget that takes effect in April. In response to public outrage at this decision, The Bookseller reports that the government and Booktrust have released a joint statement saying that the government will “continue to fund Booktrust book-gifting programmes in the future.”
However, critics are still skeptical. Labour leader Ed Miliband calls it only a “partial U-turn” (isn’t that kind of like being “a little bit pregnant”? A “partial U-turn” is just a turn!) and points out that the announcement is rather nonspecific, as it does not say anything about what amount of funding will be provided.
Hopefully the government and Booktrust will be able to come to a satisfactory arrangement to keep allowing the program to give books to kids and help support child literacy.
