Why Does a Child Need 1,000 Books?

A single child doesn't need a thousand books. A school of four hundred children, sharing books across classes and terms, needs enough that the shelf never looks empty and every reader can find something that's theirs.

A thousand books is roughly two to three books per child in a mid-sized primary school. That's enough for circulation: a book goes home, another stays in class, a third waits on the shelf for the next reader.

It's also enough for range — picture books, early chapter books, novels, non-fiction, a few odd things nobody expected to love. Range matters because the book a child finally falls for is rarely the one an adult would have picked.