Knights Of bookshop reaches £30,000 crowdfunding target

Publisher Knights Of has reached its £30,000 crowdfunding target to fund a bookshop selling children’s books with BAME characters.

“We are absolutely overjoyed to have hit our crowdfunding target with one week to go,” co-founder Aimée Felone told The Bookseller. “The support from the industry and public has been amazing and it goes to show that people want and need a physical kids bookshop in Brixton. We’re excited to meet this demand and are beyond proud to be part of the community of those making permanent change.”

The public has today (8th January) pledged £30,230 via the crowdfunding campaign and Penguin Random House will contribute an additional £15,000, meaning the company will have £45,230 to invest in the the #ReadTheOnePercent Bookshop. The tagline references a recent CLPE report that said only 1% of children’s books published in 2017 featured a BAME main character, and only 4% featured a BAME character at all.

Felone and co-founder David Stevens first launched a pop-up shop in Brixton in October, selling 550 books over five days, and ran it once more in the run-up to Christmas.

The crowdfunder is open until 15th January.