The Lost Words for Bournemouth & Poole's schools

Aim

We aim to provide a copy of The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris to every school in Bournemouth & Poole.

We would like to raise enough money to get a copy of The Lost Words into every school in the Bournemouth and Poole area. This follows a similar campaign last year which has successfully provided copies of The Lost Words to schools in the Dorset County Council area and which involved our sister shop, Gullivers Bookshop in Wimborne.

Rewards on offer:

The project is inspired by Jane Beaton's wonderful campaign to get a copy of The Lost Words into every primary school in Scotland. The Lost Words was created by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris in 2017 to celebrate the once-common nature words which had been dropped from the Oxford Junior Dictionary some ten years before – words such as acorn, wren, starling and dandelion. Read more about the book here.

The book takes twenty nature words which have been falling out of use amongst children - such as adder, kingfisher and bramble - and brings them back to life through the magical paintings of Jackie Morris and the 'spell poems' of Robert Macfarlane. All children in Dorset now have the opportunity to share in what this book has to offer through our previous successful campaign, and we want to extend that to cover schools in Bournemouth and Poole. Bournemouth and Poole libraries have kindly offered to present the books bought through our appeal to all the schools in the area, starting in the summer term. 

There are 85 schools in Bournemouth and Poole that work with 3 - 16 year olds including three special schools and one centre for alternative provision. As well giving the book to schools, we will supply a copy of 'An Explorer’s Guide to The Lost Words', a fantastic accompanying resource written by Eva John and published by the John Muir Trust which will help teachers get the most out of the book. We have allowed enough in our budget to give more than one copy to larger schools and schools spread across broader age groups.

Our target of £2000 should allow us to make sure that children in Bournemouth and Poole have the opportunity to experience what this book has to offer.  The Lost Words is a book to be shared, to delight and inspire children, and the 'spells' and the wonderful illustrations are sure to catch the imagination of all who read it.

The Lost Words is a joyful celebration of nature words and the natural world they invoke, and is set out in an ideal way to share these words across the generations. Words allow children to give things names, to share stories and memories.  Without the right words we cannot name, love, or - ultimately – care for these things. Children in schools across Dorset have already been inspired to produce artwork and 'spell poems' of their own about the nature they see around them, and we aim to provide the same inspiration for the children of Bournemouth and Poole too.

With Crowdfunder, if we don't achieve our target no money is taken from those supporters who have pledged a donation, so the project will only go ahead if we raise enough to cover every school. The books are being provided through Westbourne Bookshop (with the support of Penguin Books) at cost price, enabling us to supply the copies we need at a lower cost.

Please, if you can, support this campaign and give the children of Bournemouth and Poole a chance to bring the 'Lost Words’ to life.

Paul Angel, Richard Bradford and Emma Fernandez.

This project successfully funded on 25th April 2019