Introduction

At Outside In World, we feel children’s books should be relevant to ALL children – including children with additional needs, an audience largely overlooked by mainstream books in the UK.  

'Reading the Way': Inclusive Books from Around the World was an innovative research and development project undertaken between April 2014 and October 2015. 

Funded by Arts Council England, The Unwin Charitable Trust and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, its purpose was to help bring exceptional international books to UK audiences.  The project set out specifically to identify a range of titles that might be considered to stand out in terms of being 'accessible' to children with additional needs and/or 'inclusive' (i.e. including disability or disabled characters within the story).   

Author Nadine Kaadan and a pupil at River Beach Primary School, West Sussex, 2015. Photo © Alexandra Strick