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Raising Readers: How to nurture a child's love of books
288 pages, Paperback
Published October 29, 2025
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About the author
Megan Daley
9 books30 followersMegan Daley is passionate about children's literature and sharing it with young and old alike. In daylight hours, Megan is a teacher librarian at St Aidan's Anglican Girls School in Queensland and was recently awarded the Queensland Teacher Librarian of the Year by the School Library Association of Queensland, as well as the national Dromken Librarians Award, presented by the State Library of Victoria.
A former national vice-president of the Children's Book Council of Australia, she is currently on the Queensland chapter of the board of the Australian Children's Laureate and on the Publications Committee of the National Library of Australia. She blogs about all things literary, library and tech. She also thinks sleep is overrated.
A former national vice-president of the Children's Book Council of Australia, she is currently on the Queensland chapter of the board of the Australian Children's Laureate and on the Publications Committee of the National Library of Australia. She blogs about all things literary, library and tech. She also thinks sleep is overrated.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 21, 2025
Megan Daley is a celebrated Brisbane teacher-librarian and co-founder of the Your Kid’s Next Read Facebook community and podcast. Her debut non-fiction title, Raising Readers: How to nurture a child’s love of books, was published in 2019. This enormously valuable teacher and parent resource has now been ‘fully revised and updated’. It is clearly differentiated from the earlier edition by its eye-catching tangerine cover, yet retains some teal elements and the original cover illustration as visual ties to its roots.
The new edition of Raising Readers opens with a foreword by 2024-2025 Australian Children’s Laureate Sally Rippin, who highlights Australia’s falling reading rates and reflects on her own experience supporting a child for whom reading did not just ‘click’ in the way it has historically been assumed to do. Rippin notes that teaching children to read is not a parent’s responsibility; it is ‘a complex cognitive process best taught by a professional’. Nevertheless, parents can do many things to support this process at home, and, Rippin notes, ‘Raising Readers is bursting with creative and informative ways to do this’.
As implied in Rippin’s foreword, the chapter titled ‘Reading and School’ has been substantially overhauled. The new edition acknowledges Daley’s own journey towards understanding and applying the Science of Reading, a shift that is clear when comparing this chapter’s content to the version published six years earlier. As Daley says, ‘when we know better, we can do better’. If you already own the earlier edition of this book, this is one of the strongest arguments in favour of switching to the new one – especially if you have, or work with, young children who are learning to read.
The new edition also contains updated reading lists and new sections in some of the chapters. Some of the new subheadings include ‘Digital literature’ and ‘How to create a library makerspace’. Several subheadings from the earlier edition have also been removed, including ‘Reading differences and difficulties’. Another compelling reason to upgrade to the new version is that it contains several pages by author Kate Foster, a champion for accurate and empowering disability and mental health representation (many other authors and educators also contributed to this book; their biographies are included in the back matter). As noted by Rippin, this edition ‘supports the social model of disability which, unlike the medical model, encourages us to change the system, not the person’.
Raising Readers is an essential guide for all adults who live or work with children we hope will become, and remain, competent and enthusiastic readers. In addition to appreciating this book in my capacity as a parent, children’s author and general admirer of Megan’s work, for years I have also given it as an end-of-year teacher gift. Each time, I hope its warmth, wisdom, Australian focus and school library advocacy will be soaked up by my children’s classroom teachers, encouraging them to prioritise and model reading, respect graphic novels, seek out Australian children’s literature, and advocate for school libraries. This year, I’m looking forward to gifting the new edition!
This review was first shared on StoryLinks Australia.
The new edition of Raising Readers opens with a foreword by 2024-2025 Australian Children’s Laureate Sally Rippin, who highlights Australia’s falling reading rates and reflects on her own experience supporting a child for whom reading did not just ‘click’ in the way it has historically been assumed to do. Rippin notes that teaching children to read is not a parent’s responsibility; it is ‘a complex cognitive process best taught by a professional’. Nevertheless, parents can do many things to support this process at home, and, Rippin notes, ‘Raising Readers is bursting with creative and informative ways to do this’.
As implied in Rippin’s foreword, the chapter titled ‘Reading and School’ has been substantially overhauled. The new edition acknowledges Daley’s own journey towards understanding and applying the Science of Reading, a shift that is clear when comparing this chapter’s content to the version published six years earlier. As Daley says, ‘when we know better, we can do better’. If you already own the earlier edition of this book, this is one of the strongest arguments in favour of switching to the new one – especially if you have, or work with, young children who are learning to read.
The new edition also contains updated reading lists and new sections in some of the chapters. Some of the new subheadings include ‘Digital literature’ and ‘How to create a library makerspace’. Several subheadings from the earlier edition have also been removed, including ‘Reading differences and difficulties’. Another compelling reason to upgrade to the new version is that it contains several pages by author Kate Foster, a champion for accurate and empowering disability and mental health representation (many other authors and educators also contributed to this book; their biographies are included in the back matter). As noted by Rippin, this edition ‘supports the social model of disability which, unlike the medical model, encourages us to change the system, not the person’.
Raising Readers is an essential guide for all adults who live or work with children we hope will become, and remain, competent and enthusiastic readers. In addition to appreciating this book in my capacity as a parent, children’s author and general admirer of Megan’s work, for years I have also given it as an end-of-year teacher gift. Each time, I hope its warmth, wisdom, Australian focus and school library advocacy will be soaked up by my children’s classroom teachers, encouraging them to prioritise and model reading, respect graphic novels, seek out Australian children’s literature, and advocate for school libraries. This year, I’m looking forward to gifting the new edition!
This review was first shared on StoryLinks Australia.
February 4, 2026
If you are going to read this book be sure to get the updated version. I accidentally started with the 2019 edition which was available from my local library. I only discovered that there was an updated edition when I went to add the book to my goodreads list.
This book does exactly what it says on the cover. There are hints and tips for both educators and parents on how to get children interested in reading and maintain that interest. As a parent she acknowledges the difficulties in reading to young children if you are time poor. She never lectures or makes you feel like you are doing a bad job. There are always lots of practical tips and strategies and she's not a reading purist; she recognises that some children may listen to audio books or have tablets. At every step of the way she has a list of recommended reads. And they are excellent. I was often nodding my head at her choices. There are even a few that I have not read myself but will most likely order for my school library.
There were two parts of the book that resonated with me:
* The depiction of disabled/neurotypical people and
* grief and loss.
Daley gave excellent reasons as to why we should have authentic books for, about and by neurotypical/disabled people and gave some excellent recommendations of books to read. And, her section on not hiding death and grief from children and why some children might need these books was absolutely bang on.
This is a highly recommended book. Her research is detailed and, as mentioned, her book recommendations are bang on.
This book does exactly what it says on the cover. There are hints and tips for both educators and parents on how to get children interested in reading and maintain that interest. As a parent she acknowledges the difficulties in reading to young children if you are time poor. She never lectures or makes you feel like you are doing a bad job. There are always lots of practical tips and strategies and she's not a reading purist; she recognises that some children may listen to audio books or have tablets. At every step of the way she has a list of recommended reads. And they are excellent. I was often nodding my head at her choices. There are even a few that I have not read myself but will most likely order for my school library.
There were two parts of the book that resonated with me:
* The depiction of disabled/neurotypical people and
* grief and loss.
Daley gave excellent reasons as to why we should have authentic books for, about and by neurotypical/disabled people and gave some excellent recommendations of books to read. And, her section on not hiding death and grief from children and why some children might need these books was absolutely bang on.
This is a highly recommended book. Her research is detailed and, as mentioned, her book recommendations are bang on.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews