That’s the claim made by new research from the National Literacy Trust. The survey of 18,141 young people aged between 11 and 13 found that four in every ten boys did not own any books compared to three in every ten girls. According to research children who do not own books are less likely to do well at schools and less likely to have positive experiences of reading. I loved books as a child and could never have enough material to read. I blame this for my ever growing library but it probably did help me a great deal at school, as I would read anything I could my hands on, no matter how boring. I wonder whether something this simple is behind slipping standards in today’s schools.