The driving motivation for the Trust’s vision is the belief that reading and storytelling improve the life quality of children and young people of all abilities and backgrounds by giving them a better understanding of the world and its many cultures, developing their literacy skills, helping them to communicate better, and increasing their capacity for imagination, creativity and invention.

More widely, reading and storytelling are hugely important to the development of social and cultural behaviour, helping people when they grow up to relate to others, share their experiences and learn from them.  In this way we can become more tolerant, solve problems together and create a better world.

For these reasons we want to ensure that Scotland’s children and young people are given the time, the space and the resources to encourage reading for pleasure and the skills to write and tell their own stories.

The Trust also believes that the heritage of the house and garden that J.M. Barrie declared were “the genesis of that nefarious character… Peter Pan” can be of huge social and economic benefit to the town of Dumfries, the wider region of Dumfries & Galloway and indeed Scotland as a country. 

• To establish itself as The National Centre for Children’s Literature and Storytelling with a remit of nurturing a love of reading and storytelling across the country.
   
• To set best practices in the Scottish children’s literature sector and support its development across all genres and in Scotland’s three national languages (Scots, Gaelic and English).
   
• To establish itself as an international visitor attraction contributing to the regeneration of the town and region and providing Scotland with a world-class tourism resource.