Leila Berg, author and storyteller: 12 November 1917 - 17 April 2012
Leila campaigned actively throughout her life for the recognition of the value of children, and the importance of providing both home and school environments which respect the language of children and their own ways of expressing themselves. She championed reading, in particular reading for pleasure, as crucial to the successful development of children, and sought to educate adults in how to foster a love of reading in young children. So much of what Leila believed in is core to the aims and activities of Seven Stories, and we are privileged to play a role in keeping her legacy alive.
Seven Stories: National Centre for Children's Books, Newcastle, UK.
Leila Berg grew up in a Jewish immigrant neighbourhood in Salford in the twenties and thirties, when the scissors-grinder and the ragman and the bagel-seller still came round the houses, and grandmothers kept barrels of pickled herrings and onions in the living room...