The Queen’s Christmas Present for Year 6 children nationwide

Today, The Queen marked her birthday with a renewed commitment to supporting children’s literacy with the announcement that every Year 6 and P6 child across the UK will be gifted a special edition of the bestselling book Impossible Creatures by award-winning author Katherine Rundell this Christmas.

The Queen’s Christmas Present celebrates the National Year of Reading 2026 – the biggest campaign in a generation designed to inspire every child, young person and adult to discover the joy of reading and embed it into everyday life.

The programme, in partnership with the National Literacy Trust, of which Her Majesty is Patron, aims to ignite and embed a transformational love of reading. 

The Queen is recognised as an important champion of literacy in both the UK and internationally. As Patron of several UK literacy charities, including the National Literacy Trust, BookTrust and Coram Beanstalk, The Queen has visited schools, libraries, workplaces and prisons to shine a spotlight on the importance of literacy in creating life opportunities. Her Majesty also founded her own literacy charity, The Queen’s Reading Room, which celebrates the power and benefits of reading.

Through The Queen’s Christmas Present, every Year 6 pupil in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and P6 pupil in Scotland (or equivalent age, if not in school) will receive a special edition of Impossible Creatures – the multi-award winning, thrillingly imaginative adventure hailed as a future classic.

Each book will feature a specially designed royal stamp on the cover and a personal message from The Queen inside, an extract from which reads:

Impossible Creatures, by one of my favourite writers, is a brilliant fantasy that will introduce you to a host of mythical friends and terrifying enemies... and I hope that you will love it as much as I do.

The book will be distributed through schools and libraries, alongside a collection of free resources. To ensure that every eligible child across the UK can access the initiative, the National Literacy Trust will undertake targeted community outreach in hospitals, care settings, refuges and food banks in disadvantaged communities, engage families across the UK through a network of 900 National Year of Reading partners, and develop a series of free resources, activities and events for schools and libraries.

Find out more here.