Educational initiatives

The founders’ vision was to invest in research into reading and writing and promote initiatives running alongside each year's prize.

These include Focus on Fiction (1997) providing teaching materials for classroom teachers of English at Key Stage 3 (11 - 14-year-olds); Orange Reading Groups (1998); Orange Talks Books at Work (1999); matching up authors with reading groups and Chatterbooks – a library based scheme aimed at 4-12 year olds, which creates and supports children's reading groups, which has been running since 2001.

There are now more than 3000 children attending over 200 Chatterbooks reading groups in 116 library authorities across the UK