Hastings’s Camberley Primary School was the first in the country to introduce Alan Duff’s Books in Homes Scheme. There they have begun to talk about the “Duffy generation”. Fifteen years on, the first children to go through the programme are now having children of their own.

The school itself is at the bottom of a short cul-de-sac. But this is no dead end. Camberley School Principal Peter Johnstone and his staff are seeing to that. They have built a school culture around Books in Homes, and have been doing so since 1992, when Alan Duff was invited in as a prominent author to speak to the students.

“Alan was appalled to see so many children come from bookless homes,” says Peter. “Alan did a book drive in Havelock and arrived with trailer loads of second-hand books. But that wasn’t good enough for him; he wanted our kids to have new books.”

And according to Peter, therein lies one of the secrets to the success of the Books in Homes Scheme – ownership. Each new book given to a child contains a sticker on the inside cover that reads: “This Duffy Book belongs to”, and then a space where they write in their name. From ownership spring pride and respect, and these are helping to break cycles in a way that ripple out into the wider community.

“We used to lose about 80-90 books out of the library a term – stolen, albeit for all the right reasons,” says Peter. “Now our library still gets a thrashing, but we have virtually no thefts. The annual bill for vandalism has fallen too, from around $20,000 per annum to almost nil.”

If kids come to school every day, their names go in the draw for a book, in recognition of their good attendance, which has helped to knock truancy on the head.

“Once upon a time we would get about 40 percent of parents along to teacher interviews. Today that figure stands at above 90 percent,” says Peter.

Schools invited to join the Books in Homes programme commit to paying half the cost of two book offers. They are then linked to a sponsor who pays for the other 50 percent. Camberley’s sponsor is New Zealand Bakels Ltd of Palmerston North.

In addition, in June each year each student gets to choose a book to keep from the government’s sponsorship. Books in Homes has celebrated the four millionth book given away. Te Puni Kōkiri contributes annually to the scheme.

Each year students at Camberley receive around seven books each, but depending on their attitude and behaviour they may earn as many as 12. There are “Caught Being Good” awards, where children can be recognised for positive behaviour in the playground and in the classroom, and for attendance.

“Books in Homes has given these kids an incredibly strong pride in reading and an extreme pride in books. There is the lasting attitude that it is cool to read.

“We have started to talk about the Duffy generation. That’s because we’ve been going 15 years, and now we are hearing some young mums say ‘I was a Duffy Kid and I want my kids to be into books’.”

Peter says he is always looking for new ideas. One he wants to try is to create a T-shirt for the kids that has a patch on the back that says “It’s cool to read”.

“Around here we are used to seeing patches of a different kind and I am very keen to see a patch with an education message.”

Peter says he couldn’t imagine his school without the Books in Homes scheme: “It is such a simple system but you’ve got to have sponsorship for it to work – but what’s wrong with that? I think people can see we are better off building libraries than prisons.”