Discuss how food availability and preferences have changed in the last two generations:

• Children now probably more familiar with red pepper than with swede or turnip.
• The national dish of this country is now curry - Chicken Tikka Masala to be precise.  More curries are eaten than fish and chips.

Make the connection to reading.  We have learned to like a lot of different flavours in food.  Why restrict our reading tastes to cabbage and carrot?

Make the point that if you taste aubergine or chilli for the first time and you are expecting it to taste like potato or apple, you're in for a shock.  New flavours can take a bit of getting used to but it's worth it - just the same with books.

Make it clear that you're not knocking good old English tastes - you love a bit of cabbage/spud yourself. You're just saying you can have the other flavours too.

Check out specifics eg chillies, first available as powder in tin or jar, didn't know what original looked like, then available in Asian shops, now in supermarkets.  Lychees first available in tins, fresh ones much more recent.   There are equivalent routes for books.

You may get into discussing where the import has been around so long we all take it for granted eg many children will think bananas are local, grown in UK, as they see them so often.  What's the equivalent in reading?

Pick up on any adjectives used to describe the fruit and veg which would be really interesting if applied to books. Start with simple ones eg crisp, sweet, hot, spicy. Move on to more complex ones - mysterious, deceptive, squidgy.  You can pick up on really complicated experiences eg hairy and unappetizing on outside, unexpectedly beautiful on the inside (kiwi) prickly and inedible on outside, luscious and juicy inside (lychee) - what's the reading equivalent of that?

Be aware that for some individuals/groups their family and cultural history will mean that they relate to the veg quite differently from the dominant white English perspective. This is the same with books.

Discuss what kind of promotional ideas arise from this exercise.

Click here for more information on promoting world literature in the Open Ticket promotion.