The National Year of Reading 2026’s tagline is ‘Go All In’ and emphasises connecting books with interests and what you already enjoy — connecting books to real lives. This is the approach Emma Leeson adopts when using stories and poems as a stimulus for deeper personal enquiry using the pedagogy of Philosophy for Children

I finished a book recently which I connected with deeply. The reading experience was immersive, voracious and rewarding. Its core theme was loneliness, and I wonder if the book resonated with me so greatly because, two decades ago, I had experienced a period of penetrating loneliness, even though I had close friends and family at the time. I felt an empathy for the protagonist that at moments caused me to shed a few tears. Real connections to books are not only cathartic but also open up opportunities for philosophical conversations about our own lives, even if that conversation is with ourselves. 

Philosophy for Children (P4C) sets up the conditions for this entwining of two threads: literary and philosophical — but as a teacher and facilitator, it’s knowing how to weave the two together. Sometimes the philosophical thread leads into the literary thread, asking the students to attend to the conceptual and contestable themes in their own lives that they will encounter in the text ahead. On other occasions, the literary thread begins the story and from that a philosophical response is unpicked.

Sharing a text and inviting first thoughts

As a Year Six teacher, I still remember sharing with one class a section of The Prelude by William Wordsworth at the start of a philosophical enquiry which started with the words ‘One summer evening (led by her).’ This poem did not faze them, as I simply asked for their first thoughts, which they had practised offering in the many philosophical experiences that had come before this one. Their first thoughts were about time, invisibility, being lost, emotiveness and associations with Pandora’s Box. Thinking in philosophical concepts or themes was now intuitive for these students and was a route into asking thoughtful questions inspired by the poem.

Asking curious questions

Conversation within small groups led to philosophical questions which were conceptual, contestable and vitally, compelling, and connected to the students themselves. Questions that mattered to them were on the metaphorical table and importantly, they were not searching for a response that I had already formulated. They realised I was genuinely interested in their response. Philosophical questions included ‘Can anyone ever have a fairytale ending?’ and ‘Is everyone lost in their own way?’, opening the door into dialogue. This philosophical experience encouraged a positively charged reading of the poem and led them to think about their own existence and purpose. The question we spent most time on was ‘What happens when you die?’ This community of thinkers accepted that I did not have an answer for them, but that I would keenly facilitate, to enable them to make progress with the question.

Exploration and refinement

I tracked their thinking as they spoke, listened to other perspectives, built on ideas, asked for clarification and realised their question was challenging and existential in nature. Deliberation around what they understood by ‘soul’ ensued and whether this affected what you believed happened when you died. Inevitably, this led to new questions around faith. Reference was made to Wordsworth’s choice of words and these young people were intrigued by what could be meant by ‘voluntary power instinct’. The poem’s provocation around imagination, nature, reflection and ultimately the human experience, had captured them.

Evaluation and reflection

We considered whether progress had been made with our question and our community. However, the reflection continued beyond the timetabled slot. As the class went out for morning break, a child came up to me and told me the discussion had been really helpful because she had lost a pet a while ago. She thanked me. 

The same class asked the question ‘Is death always a bad thing or can it sometimes be good?’ when I used an image of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to launch our work on Shakespeare’s play. Yes, they seemed preoccupied with death, but using my knowledge of the class and sensitivity, we pursued this question and grew stronger as a community and as individuals. As well as death, they had noted the concepts of power and control in the image and were invested in the play before they had heard the first line. Perhaps the literary and philosophical threads are not two entwined, but strands of the same thread?

Finding the philosophical intentionally

Some books ask their own questions, like Marc Majewski’s book Does Earth Feel? which led to a passionate discussion with Year Four and Five children about what makes Earth feel and whether ‘the Earth’ includes humans’ feelings. One boy suggested that the Earth cannot feel as it doesn’t have a brain. Another disagreed and said that all the humans on Earth have brains and are part of the Earth — and so decide how it feels. Square by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen intentionally led to a conversation about perfection after I had asked them: ‘Is it possible to draw a perfect square or a perfect circle?’One child suggested that if it looks how you wanted and imagined, then that would be perfect — or perfect enough. It was fascinating to discover that they were comfortable with perfection and didn’t view it as threatening. They were also intrigued by the secretive ideas within the book and asked ‘If you tell someone a secret, is it still a secret?’.

After reading My Very Own Special Particular Private and Personal Cat by Sandol Stoddard Warburg, I asked a series of nested questions: ‘Do you think the cat was free? Are you free? Are you free to think?’ It doesn’t take a huge facilitator move to pick up the philosopical thread, but I would argue that you need to be sensitive to the philosophical potential a book holds and it needs to be intentional, rather than just hoping it might happen. Another example, in response to Maya Angelou’s poem ‘Does Life Frighten You?’ is the question ‘Should life frighten you?’. The ‘should’ in the question was deliberate and immediately the children were off, speaking and listening to each other in small groups about whether they agreed or disagreed — they were thinking about fear and life and danced back and forth between Angelou’s poem and their own fears. 

Reflective moments

Adults are open to this dance too. In a parents P4C group, we watched and read the book The Red Tree by Shaun Tan, which presents diverse emotional landscapes using words and images. Reflection followed and first thoughts and responses included light (and hope) at the end of the tunnel, ideas about not knowing who you are and questions such as ‘What should be hidden?’. Another important thought started to mature, which stemmed from the idea that we need to recognise the light from the tree when it comes and be in it. The collaboratively formed philosophical questions in response to this literary experience were:

Are we meant to be doing everything we think we should be doing?

Is it being selfish, looking after yourself?

When you’re not coping, what can help you get through?

Should we not put on that persona all the time of coping?

Can things that we don’t want to do help us cope?

Do we have to cope? And if we don’t, what next?

The last question was posed by a parent who had arrived late. However, she not only quickly assimilated into the community, but became an integral part of the conversation. Once she had posed it, every person there started talking about it. This was a significant indicator that this question was not only conceptual and contestable, but also compelling and acutely connected to them. Before the school hall was quickly turned around for an assembly, I asked what was significant for them today that they will take home with them. Replies included ‘That I’m not going through all this chaos of parenting alone’ and ‘I’m feeling understood and somehow validated’. Another woman stated ‘Knowing that it is OK to not know all the answers. Knowing others are feeling the same’. This was a human experience that started with a picture book and ended with people thinking about how they live their lives.

Interacting with text in caring, collaborative, creative and critical ways

P4C’s method uses caring, collaborative, creative and critical thinking and this schema could also be helpful for considering how we engage with text. The endevour to get young people (and adults) to care about what they are reading and value it — to engage with the author’s words personally and with others through collaborative thinking; to use its ideas and language creatively and playfully to ask questions; to use a critical eye to make judgements and apply it in our own worlds — is all central to what real-life reading is about. P4C is a pedagogy rooted in care and connectedness and broadens how we interact with a book. It puts us in the position to go all in.

Our own life libraries

As adult readers, if we recalled books that were influential in our lives, it would no doubt make for a varied and surprising book list. Our life library would be personal, not prescriptive. It would be full of characters we have met, thought with and learnt from. Young people in education have the opportunity to talk, listen and think with others about books in our classrooms. Perhaps their reason to read is to add to their life library and go all in to think about lives philosophically, both imagined and real. That’s when picking up a book is an exciting prospect as it matters to the life we are living now.

Further reading

Angelou, M. (2018) Does Life Frighten You? Edited by S. J. Boyers. New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers.

Barnett, M. and Klassen, J. (2019) Square. London: Walker Books.

Majewski, M. (2021) Does Earth Feel? New York: HarperCollins.

National Literacy Trust (2026) National Year of Reading 2026. London: National Literacy Trust.

Santi, E. (2023) ‘Reading and Narrative Fiction: Understanding Ourselves and Others’. London: British Educational Research Association.

Stoddard Warburg, S. (2023) My Very Own Special Particular Private and Personal Cat. New York: Enchanted Lion Books.

Tan, S. (2010) The Red Tree. Sydney: Lothian Children’s Books.

Wordsworth, W. (1850) The Prelude.