Lauren Laverne reads a new online story your child will love

Published on: 22 May 2017

To celebrate 25 years of Bookstart, popular TV presenter and radio DJ Lauren Laverne will narrate and bring this year's National Bookstart Week title, Everybunny Dance!, to life.

For 25 years, our programme Bookstart has been gifting free books to all children, at two key ages before school, to help inspire a love of books.

During National Bookstart Week (5 to 11 June 2017), libraries, children's centres, nurseries and bookshops will hold hundreds of free events around the country for babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers and their families.

To mark this year's theme, "Let's Explore Outdoors!", families can join in with Lauren's playful reading of Everybunny Dance!: all about a warren of jolly rabbits who make friends with a fox.

'Sharing moments of fun'

Lauren Laverne - the voice of Everybunny Dance! - says:

I'm thrilled to be taking part in BookTrust's National Bookstart Week. Reading is an important way of bringing families together, sharing moments of fun and exploring other worlds with our children. I hope families up and down the country have a fantastic time celebrating!

She also believes that reading with your child is a special, bonding experience.

Reading books with your children is a lovely time that you can share together. It is good for bonding and for your relationships, for both the parent and child. It is also a lovely way to inspire children's imaginations and for the parents and carers to explore that imagination with them, as children are always going to bring something to it that is unexpected.

Get your own copy of Everybunny Dance!

Throughout National Bookstart Week (5 to 11 June 2017), every child that goes to an event will get their very own copy of Ellie Sandall's Everybunny Dance!

BookTrust's partnership with Hodder Children's Books, part of the Hachette Children's Group, will mean that 450,000 copies of the book will go out to families.

The Everybunny Dance! online storybook is also available in Welsh and as a British Sign Language video.