Press release: Nursery rhyme rap tops the chart

Scottish Book Trust, the national charity changing lives through reading and writing, today reveals that a modern rap inspired by nursery rhymes is the most popular song on its Bookbug app. Sprog Rock's Nursery Rhymes Rap has been consistently popular since the app's launch one year ago, and has been listened to over 37,000 times. The rap features a mix of popular nursery rhymes including Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and Incy Wincy Spider, and was created by Sprog Rock after working with nurseries in Inverclyde, Glasgow, Stirling and Edinburgh.

The Bookbug app, which is free to download, hosts songs and rhymes that can be enjoyed by families. Over one million songs and rhymes have been listened to in the app since launch in January 2019. More content has been added to the Bookbug app including some new Scots and Gaelic songs and rhymes, funded by the Gaelic and Scots Learning Directorate at Scottish Government. The Bookbug app was shortlisted for the Demonstrating Digital category in the Scottish Charity Awards, and has also been recognised as a finalist for the Digital Leaders 100 Digital Charity of the Year.

Building on the increasing demand for modern nursery rhymes, Scottish Book Trust have commissioned Sprog Rock to develop a brand new birthday song created through interactive nursery workshops that will be released during Bookbug Week in May to celebrate 10 years of Bookbug.

Sprog Rock will also celebrate their 10 year anniversary in 2020. The group started during founder Katy Wilson's 18 month artist residency with Starcatchers at Tramway. Sprog Rock now comprises of an 8 piece band of professional musicians and performers, with Katy as Creative Director. The aim of Sprog Rock is to discover what music children really like: directly collaborating with young people to write new music. Children are involved in everything from lyric writing, sound creation and costume design. A popular choice on the Bookbug app, Sprog Rock's five tracks have gathered over 60,000 listens in total.

Sharing stories, songs and rhymes with children has many wonderful benefits, including developing their language skills, allowing time to cuddle and bond, and encourages relaxation. Scottish Book Trust offers free song & rhyme Bookbug Sessions across Scotland, which take place all year round. You can find your local session on the Bookbug app or on Scottish Book Trust’s website.

Marc Lambert, CEO of Scottish Book Trust, said:

"It's fantastic that the Bookbug app has been so popular with parents, carers and early years practitioners, as demonstrated by over one million songs being played through the app since January 2019. Sharing songs, stories and rhymes with your child can promote family bonding and help develop language skills. We hope parents and carers across Scotland, whether they speak English, Scots or Gaelic, continue to enjoy using the Bookbug app."

Maree Todd, Minister for Children and Young People, said:

“I’m very pleased to see how many people have taken advantage of downloading the Bookbug app since its launch, and using it to reinforce the learning from Bookbug sessions. “We live in a digital world and this is an excellent example of merging on and offline learning in a fun and practical way.”

Notes to editors

Other Sprog Rock songs on the Bookbug app include: The Sound of Shapes, Muddy Puddles, Same But Different and The Joke Song.

Scottish Book Trust

Scottish Book Trust is a national charity changing lives through reading and writing. We inspire and support the people of Scotland to read and write for pleasure through programmes and outreach work that include:

• Gifting books to every child in Scotland to ensure families of all backgrounds can share the joy of books at home.
• Working with teachers to inspire children to develop a love of reading, creating innovative classroom activities, book awards and author events.
• Supporting Scotland’s diverse writing community with our training, awards and writing opportunities.
• Funding a range of author events for the public to enjoy and promoting Scottish writing to people worldwide.

In addition to the funding we receive from the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland, we need the constant support of trusts and foundations, corporate sponsors and individual donors.

Bookbug

The Bookbug programme is managed by Scottish Book Trust and run in partnership with libraries, health professionals and nurseries. The programme benefits from sponsorship from children’s publishers and central funding from the Scottish Government through a grant from the Children and Families Directorate. Bookbug also receives support from local authorities, library services and health boards through the provision of local staff time and logistics solutions. Bookbug Sessions are run by local libraries and community groups. Over 24,000 Bookbug Sessions happen across Scotland every year. These are free, fun-filled story and rhyme sessions for babies to four-year-olds, attended by thousands of parents and children a year.

Bookbug’s targeted outreach programme, Bookbug for the Home, trains Early Years practitioners to give support to families on a one-to-one basis. Since 2012, Bookbug for the Home has helped over 14,000 families, encouraging parents to do more talking, book sharing and singing with their children.

Scottish Book Trust recently launched a new Bookbug app for parents, carers and children to enjoy together. The free app is designed to complement Bookbug Bags and Bookbug Sessions, offering greater accessibility to rhymes and songs to families across Scotland. The app can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.

Creative Scotland

Scottish Book Trust is supported by Creative Scotland through Regular Funding. Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland on behalf of everyone who lives, works or visits here. We enable people and organisations to work in and experience the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland by helping others to develop great ideas and bring them to life. We distribute funding provided by the Scottish Government and the National Lottery. For further information about Creative Scotland please visit www.creativescotland.com(this link will open in a new window), or follow on Twitter(this link will open in a new window) or Facebook(this link will open in a new window).