Guest Northern Highlight  Will Carr Senior Partnership Magager for the North of England,  BookTrust  Can you tell us about BookTrust?   Reading and sharing stories changes people’s lives. BookTrust is the largest reading charity in the UK: we provide books, resources and support to get every child reading regularly and by choice. BookTrust reaches millions of children every year through book-gifting programmes and our work in libraries and schools. We support families to share stories from the earliest possible moment and children to develop lifelong reading habits. To do this we work with all kinds of different partners, such as publishers, children’s centres, libraries and health professionals. From running the national Children's Laureate programme to giving out books to families and schools, delivering exciting reading campaigns or celebrating the very best children's books with our prizes, everything we do aims to inspire children of all ages to get reading.   How

Northern Highlight  Sheryl Webster  Where are you based, and how would you sum up the place in three words?  I am based in Liverpool, not far from the River Mersey, and a stone’s throw away from the childhood home of Paul McCartney.   Choosing only three words to sum up Liverpool is a challenge, but I will go for…creative, vibrant and friendly. What is special to you about writing children's books, and what is your favourite thing about it? The most special thing to me about writing children’s books is being able to create characters that will empower and inspire children, characters that will have a positive impact on their lives, and on how they react to the world around them. For example, the main character in my new picture book,  Kindness Rocks,  is a role model whose actions show the impact of acts of kindness, not just on making others happy – but also the effect that doing nice things for others has on our own happiness. My favourite thing about writing for children is…the