The rapper writes in a new anniversary introduction that reading Noughts & Crosses “was the first time that words on a page had gripped me in the same way that a film or TV series had”. This is exactly the message behind the government-backed National Year of Reading campaign, for which Blackman is an ambassador. Of course, young people now have more screens to keep them from books. Just last month research from the National Literacy Trust showed that fewer than one in 10 boys aged 14 to 16 in the UK read daily.