Queen Camilla’s 79th birthday happened a few weeks ago. Camilla celebrated with a couple of new portraits, a stiff drink and a big announcement about a book give-away. Camilla’s office announced that for her birthday, Camilla organized one free book for every child in “Year 6” of Britain’s public schools. The children won’t receive the books until Christmas. They don’t get to choose what free book they’d like to read either – Camilla selected the book as a birthday present. The book is Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures. I’m sure some kids will enjoy it and some kids won’t. Well, British academic Darren Chetty has written a somewhat scathing piece about why “The Queen’s Christmas Present” isn’t all that great. You can read the full piece here (it’s long but worth it) and here are the broad-stroke criticisms:
On July 17th 2026, educational charity the National Literacy Trust (NLT) announced an initiative entitled ‘The Queen’s Christmas Present’. We learned that all Year 6 and P6 children in the UK will be gifted a copy of Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures. The 800,000 books, we were told, were a gift from Queen Camilla. Each book will feature a unique royal stamp on the cover and a message from Camilla. In an Instagram post, Rundell spoke excitedly about how this initiative will mean that every single child in the country will have something in common, her book.
What emerges through the details of this project is a particular vision of Britishness. But this book, rather like Christmas and The British Monarchy, will not be everyone’s cup of tea. Certainly, the announcement has not been met with universal approval. Waterstones Children’s Laureate Patrice Lawrence offered her view, ‘I would have loved this book as 10-year-old, but I was a confident and prolific reader. However, I would have been in the minority in my class, because ten-year-olds have widely diverse tastes, including some who don’t enjoy books at all. A comic book would have been a wonderful gift, with a mixture of contributors and different elements – comic strips, quizzes, longer form prose, a participatory element. Something to engage all children.’ Michael Rosen, former Children’s Laureate and professor of children’s literature captured the spirit of many online responses from writers, librarians and teachers when saying, ‘Free books for all Year 6s? Great! Only one title? Why? How? Surely, reading for pleasure is about choice, isn’t it?’
No further details about the decision-making process or the financial side of this initiative were shared. Was the decision made by Camilla herself? In response to a list of questions from me, Jonathan Douglas, NLT CEO, offered only that the Queen, Katherine Rundell and The National Literacy Trust ‘came together…to build this initiative.’ Funding for production and distribution has come from unnamed ‘individual philanthropic donors and foundations.’ However public money, in the form of a special grant from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport will be used for ‘marketing and communications to support the outreach programme for schools and communities.’ Public funding to market an initiative based on a commercial product is not so rare, but should prompt questions. It will be for others to determine whether in this case there is any conflict of interest, given Katherine Rundell’s role as an Ambassador for the NLT. The Society of Authors is aware of members’ concerns regarding the details of the project.
The bigger question is how this initiative fits with the aims of the National Year of Reading which the NLT has been tasked with driving. The website for the National Year of Reading lays out a vision of reading that is centred on the agency of young readers and their freedom to make choices; ‘Centred on the message, “if you’re into it, read into it,” we position reading as a gateway to deepening existing interests.’ In stark contrast to this positioning, the gift to be bestowed on children is, we are told, one selected by ‘Her Majesty the Queen, the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith’. When asked if this initiative was informed by research on volitional reading, Jonathan Douglas referred to research on the importance of book ownership. But curiously he also appeared to echo some of the criticisms of his organisation’s initiative, saying that, ‘evidence shows that giving children choice and access to books that match their interests is one of the most effective ways to encourage reading engagement.’
The book is being described as gift from The Queen yet it appears she is not contributing a penny. At a time of concern and questions about the Monarchy in relation to the welfare of young people, this project is good PR for the institution. The most obvious beneficiaries are Katherine Rundell and her publisher. Those who do enjoy the book might ask their parents to buy them the rest of the series. But book-sales are not the major money-spinner in play here. Last year Rundell signed a film deal with Disney for Impossible Creatures with plans to create a film franchise. If successful, this could generate the kind of money for Rundell that it did for another Bloomsbury children’s writer. Indeed, the cover of the third book in the series, bears a striking resemblance to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – surely no accident. We don’t know who is funding this initiative. We may never know. But we do know that Rundell is now backed by Disney money. One headteacher described the gift books as ‘big fat flyers for a film franchise. Can’t read the book we’ve all been talking about? Don’t worry, the movie will be out soon.’
Wow, this is incredible – Camilla “chose” to give a book which is part of a Harry Potter-esque series, a series which has already been acquired by Disney. And Camilla is not paying out of pocket for any part of this – 800,000 books being given away and no one is sure who is paying for what. And most child-development and literacy scholars are like… hey, one of our biggest messages is that kids should get to choose what to read. Absolutely bonkers. Calling Camilla out for this PR exercise is pretty amazing too – this clearly isn’t about sharing the gift of reading, but what really is the purpose?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
