THE HARE

from: Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales

One day the hare went to the house of the hunter who was away hunting. He said to the hunter’s wife: ‘Come to my house and live with me; we have meat and vegetables every day.’ The woman went with him, but when she saw the lair of the hare and had eaten grass with him and slept in the open with him, she was not satisfied. She said: ‘I want to go back.’ The hare said: ‘You came here by your own choice.’ The woman did not know the road in the bush, so she said: ‘Come with me and I will cook a nice dinner.’ The hare took her to her house. Then she said: ‘Get me some firewood.’

The hare went to the forest and collected a load of firewood. The woman lit a fire and put a pot on it. When the water was boiling she put the hare into the pot. When the hunter came home she said: ‘I caught a hare for dinner.’ The hunter never knew what happened.

Did you know?

1 in 8 disadvantaged children in the UK say that they don’t have a book of their own.

The longer children keep an enjoyment of reading going, the greater the benefits are in the classroom: 10-year-olds who enjoy reading have a reading age 1.3 years higher than their peers who do not enjoy reading, rising to 2.1 years for 12-year-olds and 3.3 years for 14-year-olds.

Almost 4,000,000 children in the UK are growing up in poverty and disadvantage, putting them at significant risk of literacy failure (Child Poverty Action Group 2016). Despite small improvements in closing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers, if we continue at this pace the UK will lose at least 3 generations before equality is reached. Inequalities do transmit into later life outcomes, where young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to continue into further or higher education and, without the basics in literacy, will have lower average earnings, poorer health and greater propensity to become involved with crime (Education Policy Institutes ‘Closing the Gap’ report 2017).

Children born into communities with the most serious literacy challenges have some of the lowest life expectancies in England. Read more from the National Literary Trust here.

GET INVOLVED

The Children’s Literacy Charity provides high quality one-to-one literacy interventions for children and young people who need help with their literacy.

They work with: children, parents & schools and their goal is to see all underachieving children recognise their value and achieve their true potential.

The Children’s Literacy Charity is currently looking for Community Literacy Lab Tutors to work in the South London area. If this sounds like the thing for you – apply here!

Enjoying storytime? Discover some gut-wrenching Victorian children’s stories in ‘A Cautionary Tale’!