A new photograph of Queen Camilla has been released to celebrate her 79th birthday — but the picture, showing the Queen in a long blue dress taken last month in the state drawing room of Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland, is only part of the story.
Buckingham Palace said the Queen was marking her birthday with a renewed commitment to supporting children’s literacy, announcing that every Year 6 and P6 child across the UK will be gifted a special edition of Katherine Rundell’s book *Impossible Creatures* this Christmas. The book will be distributed through schools and libraries, each copy carrying a personal message from the Queen, who describes it as a “brilliant fantasy that will introduce you to a host of mythical friends and terrifying enemies”.
“Queen Camilla marks 79th birthday by gifting special edition of Katherine Rundell's 'Impossible Creatures' to every Year 6 child.”
The new UK book gifting and reading programme has been launched in partnership with the National Literacy Trust, which has the Queen as its patron. It forms part of the National Year of Reading 2026, a wider drive to inspire the joy of reading and embed it in daily life.
Much of the Queen’s public work already supports reading and literacy. She created the Reading Room charity to promote the benefits of reading. Last month, during Royal Week in Edinburgh, she met Harry Potter author JK Rowling at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where they discussed their “shared passion for books” and the importance of children reading. She has also backed the BBC’s 500 Words creative writing competition for children.
For the Queen, whose birthday falls on 17 July, the announcement signals a deepening of her patronage of literacy causes — and a concrete promise to put a book into the hands of hundreds of thousands of children before the year is out.
