One Million Books on New Adventures

The Children's Book Project's partnership with Asda is helping to tackle book poverty by increasing access to books for children across the UK. Together, we have developed a scalable, practical model that combines national reach, logistics expertise and effective use of backhaul opportunity plus colleague engagement to deliver meaningful impact at a national and local level. Asda's commitment and collaborative approach has enabled us to double our output in the National Year of Reading to one million books. The retailer itself expects to hit its millionth book donated by mid-summer 2026.

Prominent book donation trolleys in Asda superstores and Home Office locations remain front of mind and enable customers and colleagues to contribute high-quality children’s books at their convenience. These donations are then transported exploiting the backhaul potential of Asda’s logistics infrastructure, allowing books to be collected from stores and delivered efficiently into the Children’s Book Project hubs.

Asda colleagues further support the partnership through extensive volunteering at depots where they sort and prepare books for distribution, through family outreach within each store and by supporting school-based events that connect children directly with books.

Through this collaboration, the partnership has increased both the volume and consistency of donated books, strengthened operational capacity, and expanded reach into communities where children have limited access to books.

By combining infrastructure, people and purpose, the partnership demonstrates how a national retailer can play a simple, yet innovative and critical role in delivering a scalable solution to book poverty.