Free To Be Me resource packs
These resource packs are companion publications to the Free To Be Me reading guide which forms the basis of the wider Free To Be Me project. This is a project that celebrates diversity, representation and inclusion in books for children and young people aged 0–18, to ensure equity and visibility in both school and public libraries, bookshops and shelves in the home. For these packs, we have taken titles from our Free To Be Me reading guide and explored them further, creating useful resources for primary and secondary schools, with questions, activities and other suggested areas to explore.
Children's Books Ireland encourages reading for pleasure: it is central to everything we do. We know that reading has been shown to build empathy and improve mental wellbeing: children who enjoy reading are three times more likely to have good mental wellbeing than children who don’t.
Reading is more important for children’s cognitive development than their parents' or guardians' level of education and is a more powerful factor in life achievement than socio-economic background. According to the OECD, finding ways to engage students in reading may be one of the most effective ways to leverage social change. To be successful and to truly leverage this social change, children and young people need to be able to connect to what they are reading, to see themselves. We need to fully reflect the population of our readers.
We want to support and encourage the potential of all children and young people in Ireland to learn about and better understand the richness and beauty of difference, and to know and understand their responsibility to protect each other's right to be different and to live free from discrimination. Our goal is to highlight 'missing' stories, to amplify the voices and visibility in children's and young people's literature of those least heard and seen and showcase the diversity of Irish society across gender, socio-economic, additional needs, cultural and language backgrounds. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically Article 31, includes the right to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and encourages the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity for all children.
Free To Be Me - primary school resource pack
For this pack, we have taken twenty-two titles from our Free To Be Me reading guide and explored them further, creating a useful resource for ages 0–12+, with questions, activities and other suggested areas to explore. The age ranges attached to each title are a suggested guideline: you will know your class or reading group better. Very often the suggested activities are suitable for all ages, even when the book itself is recommended for older or younger readers (and remember older children gain great benefits by reading picturebooks – so don’t be afraid to use all the titles for older groups). You could always run the activity 'without' the book, or use it to complement your exploration of an entirely different book.
Free To Be Me - secondary school resource pack
For this pack, we have taken twenty titles from our Free To Be Me reading guide and explored them further, creating a useful resource for ages 12–18+, with questions, activities and other suggested areas to explore. The age ranges attached to each title are a suggested guideline: you will know your class or reading group better. Very often the suggested activities are suitable for all ages, even when the book itself is recommended for older or younger readers. You could always run the activity 'without' the book, or use it to complement your exploration of an entirely different book.
