Children ’s laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce has called for national action to tackle the children’s " reading crisis", as new research suggests families are increasingly struggling to make reading part of daily life. Speaking at London’s Royal Institution, at an event hosted by children’s reading charity BookTrust, he argued that evidence shows there is an appetite to read among children, but families need more support. He claimed the UK is facing a serious crisis in children’s development, connecting this to wider pressures including poverty, housing insecurity, isolation and the erosion of local services such as libraries and youth provision. Part of this challenge is that too many children are starting school without consistently experiencing the warmth of shared stories and books, he said. To coincide with his speech, BookTrust has shared the results of its latest family survey, which found that between 2021 and 2025 daily shared reading among families with children aged up to eight fell from 60% to 49%.…