Learning to read, and developing a lifelong engagement with reading, requires access to quality reading material, and plenty of it. Historically, there has been heated debate around what are the optimal approaches and texts to develop literacy in young readers. This discussion is so divisive it is commonly referred to as the ‘reading wars’, pitting systematic educational texts against less structured, creative varieties of books for early readers. This paper takes a fresh look at the ‘reading wars’, interrogating current thinking on the types of reading materials required for literacy improvement in the context of remote and low income communities.