INDEPENDENT bookshops have been given a boost by readers who have ditched their Kindles to return words on printed pages.

Bookstore managers welcomed the trend during Independent Booksellers Week, which encourages hundreds of shops across the UK to celebrate with special events.

Among those taking part during the week which finished on Saturday was Mostly Books in Stert Street, Abingdon.

Manager Mark Thornton ran a special storytelling event for young readers on Wednesday featuring the Gruffalo, from the popular children's books by Julia Donaldson.

He said: "Our sales assistant Imogen Hargreaves kindly agreed to wear the Gruffalo suit and when some of the children got a bit scared we let them hide round the corner, before they plucked up the courage to have their photos taken."

Next month father-of-two Mr Thornton will celebrate the shop's 10th anniversary with wife Nicki, who has won a £10,000 prize to have her children's story The Firefly Cage published.

He added: "Independent Booksellers Week is a wonderful initiative and independent bookshops are continuing to show a resurgence.

"The initial boon period for independent books seems to be over - people spend so long at work in front of screens that when they get home they find it more relaxing to look at words on a page.

"The relationship we have with local schools has been strengthened as they realise we hold an important piece of the literacy puzzle."

Mr Thornton said customers would respond to independent bookshops which staged special events and where staff showed "good stock knowledge".

The number of independent bookshops in the UK fell below 1,000 two years ago and Mr Thornton said he hoped the total was now "stabilising."

Despite announcing last year that he and Mrs Thornton could sell the business, he added Mostly Books has already signed up events for 2017, and a signing session with a big-name author is being planned for September.

Caroline French, co-owner of Cole's Books, in Crown Walk, Bicester, said: "Children and people of all ages are reading print books as much as anything else.

"They have done the e-reader thing and are coming back to books.

"We get get great support from our customers and have a very loyal customer base in the town and the villages around."

Ian Collett, who runs The Bookstore in the Bury Street precinct in Abingdon, said: "The Kindle boom does appear to be over - people who were given them as presents are coming back into the store and saying they want to buy books.

"Independent Booksellers Week is a good way of raising the profile of independent books - we have to compete against Amazon and the supermarkets, who sell books at discounted prices."

Earlier this month Oxford University Press said a survey of 349 teachers found 56 per cent of teachers did not have enough time to discuss stories with pupils, and 36 per cent believed that having more time for books would make the biggest difference to promoting a love of reading in their school.