Six things that must happen to reverse this headlong rush to an illiterate British generation

Halfway through 2011 came a horrifying National Literacy Trust survey of more than 18,000 children.

It listed the following staggering statistics:

• one in four children is unable to read or write properly when they leave London's primary schools
• three in ten live in households that do not contain a single book
• one in six people in the UK have the literacy level expected of an eleven year old
• in 2005, 1 in 10 of the children and young people surveyed said they did not have a book of their own at home; but by 2011 this figure had increased to an incredible 1 child in 3.

Why is this not seen as a national scandal?

I believe it's because we have two cultures in this country. Those of us who are educated and read all know other people like ourselves who encourage their own children to read.

For these statistics to be true, we must be outnumbered by those for whom reading books is virtually an unknown pasttime.

All my life, newspapers have been wringing their hands about the levels of childhood and adult literacy.

Successive education ministers of every political hue have experimented with different teaching methods.

And all this time the problem has been getting worse and worse.

I believe that it's a root problem of our British culture; a culture that is leading to the closing of so many libraries.

Library closures

I learned my love of books from my local library.

But the latest figures on closures are that 415 libraries (323 buildings and 92 mobiles) are currently under threat or closed/have left council control since the beginning of this financial year out of around 4612 in the whole country.

Librarian professional body CILIP forecasts are even worse: it says that 600 libraries are under threat (inc. 20% of English libraries).

This does not include school libraries. Here, as this article from the Guardian reveals:

• school libraries are facing drastic funding reductions
• many school librarians are being downgraded or even made redundant
• School Library Services are closing
• some children’s book awards have folded
• book gifting schemes have had their funding reduced
• some schools have postponed author visits.

Every month brings bad news: in December we learnt that Hertfordshire Schools Library Services, one of England’s largest and most respected Schools Library Services, is set to close in the New Year.

The latest library visitor figures, covering the year to March 2011, showed overall library visitor numbers down 2.3% to 314.5 million and book issues down 2.9% to 300.2 million.

Although this is a reduction, it is less than what you might expect given these closures.

In November, Alan Gibbons called for a moratorium on the closure of libraries.

Tackling illiteracy and library closures was also the subject of Patrick Ness's Carnegie Medal acceptance speech, which he won with Monsters of Men, the third of his Chaos Walking series.

Too often, writers are told by publishers (I was told myself this year) that teenage boys don't read books and so we can't publish your book.

What can we do?

As writers, we must join with Ness and Gibbons. We can no longer be complacent. Our livelihood is at stake.

Yes, we have to keep writing compelling books. But we also have to act.

Here are six things that need to happen:

1. We must be prepared to occupy libraries faced with closure, just like the occupy movement.
2. The government must stop closing libraries and encourage more children to read in every way possible; even if it comes to giving away books. This happens in developing countries where the level of literacy is higher than ours, for God's sake!
3. Publishers must reconsider the pricing of books. Books are expensive compared to other media which children enjoy, much of which is free, like television, the Internet, radio, music and video games. There needs to be a range of cheap books aimed at less literate children to get them reading so they can later migrate to more difficult books for their age group.
4. The pricing of e-books needs to be much, much cheaper (for the iPad etc.), with all kinds of promotional tools like the vouchers used by iTunes, which would be the modern equivalent of book vouchers.
5. Reading books must be made more cool. Celebrities rated by children need to come out and encourage children to read.
6. You should get involved in CILIP's advocacy work on school libraries and schools' library services, if you aren't already.

It's going to take a lot of effort to turn this devastating trend around. But for the sake of the next generation, we have to do it.

The Paradox of Reading - Joan Lennon

Isn't it amazing that anything so outwardly solitary can be so densely populated, anything that we do so quietly can resound with so many voices, anything that we do in such stillness can fling us quite so far?

Here's to reading, then, as the year turns towards spring and blessings get counted. First page of the list, for sure, and not far from the top.

Visit Joan's website.

Visit Joan's blog.

The Bookette's BBC by Keren David

If you’re a British author and you find yourself getting more internet reviews in 2011 than ever before your books receive next year, it’s likely you’ve got one woman to thank. The Bookette is the alias of Becky, a school librarian from Essex, who manages to juggle a demanding job and her own writing ambitions with running one of the most popular children’s book blogs in Britain. She has nearly 500 followers on her blog - but is read by many more than that. Her reviews are always thoughtful and balanced, but she’s not scared to put the boot in when she feels she must. She’s a reviewer you can trust, and she brings her deep knowledge of children’s literature to the task of assessing new books.
She’s never satisfied with just reviewing alone though. She’s running a campaign to get Katherine Roberts’ Song Quest back in print, promoting it by organising a blog tour and a cover competition.
And her latest idea should shine a light on a lot of British books. The Bookette has launched a new meme - a feature that other bloggers sign up to - the British Books Challenge (BBC) 2011. This offers prizes and promotion to bloggers who sign up to read and review books by British authors, new and old, during 2011. The challenge is for British bloggers, who are encouraged to read 12 home-grown books; and to international bloggers who can read six for a ‘Winston Churchill’ or 12 for the full ‘Royal Family’. Read 50 British books and you qualify for a crown.
Becky has prize packs from British publishers to help promote the challenge, and she’s already signed up more than 40 bloggers for the challenge. If they all read and review an average of 10 books each, that’s 400 reviews. That’s a whole lot of internet buzz for all sorts of British authors, who can find it very difficult to get noticed at home or abroad.
So, on behalf of British authors generally - goodness, I never thought I'd be able to write that! - many thanks to Becky for the work she’s put in to organise this challenge. And thank you to all the book bloggers out there, who take time and much trouble to read and report on our efforts. You’re unpaid for all your hard work, but not unappreciated. In a world where review space in print media is ever-shrinking, your influence is growing every day.
And in the spirit of  her challenge, here are some British books I'm looking forward to reading in 2011:
The Opposite of Amber, by Gillian Philip; Jessie hearts NY by Keris Stainton, Kiss, Date, Love, Hate by Luisa Plaja, Hidden by Miriam Halahmy, Entangled by Cat Clarke,  Divine Freaks by Fiona Dunbar, A Year Without Autumn by Liz Kessler and  Sequins Stars and Spotlights by Sophia Bennett. How about you?

The Gift of Reading - Lucy Coats

Yesterday you had John Dougherty's sobering post on a Gloucestershire Councillor's overt 'fibs' about the High Court's judgement on libraries. Today's post will be no less politically-minded, I'm afraid, and what's more I don't have any beautiful pictures of India to console you with.  Instead, I'm going to give you a headline:

Almost 4m children in Britain do not own a book

Shocking, isn't it?  That's apparently 1 in 3 children.  Yes, that's right.  Your eyes are not deceiving you.

ONE IN THREE

It makes my heart break to read this statistic, let alone to write it down in big, bold letters, and when you add it to another recent statistic, that 24% of adults in the UK have the numeracy skills of a child of nine, or younger, then we are looking at a literacy/numeracy disaster which will affect coming generations in ways which are nearly too dreadful to contemplate.  Except that we must contemplate it. 

I've banged on often about the importance of saving our libraries here and elsewhere, along with many others on this blog.  If all these children do not own a book, for a variety of reasons, many of which are to do with socio-economic factors, where are they most likely to be helped to appreciate that books and reading are important?  School? Of course. But many school librarians have now felt the sharp sting of the axe edge.  So, the local library - if there is one left.  This is why I beg all of you to put a date in your diaries, Saturday 4th February, 2012, which has been designated National Libraries Day. Much will be happening, and your support will be vital.  You can keep an eye on what's going on by joining the Campaign for the Book's Official Facebook page, where you will find regular updates on this and other library news from Alan Gibbons. We must all make our voices heard, and loudly, to preserve what we already have for those millions of children and adults who need access to libraries and books so badly.  Damn those who say libraries are not important, and an extravagance in this time of recession and cuts.  Our libraries are an essential cornerstone of literacy.  They are essential, full stop.

But back to those one in three children who do not own a book.  What could we do about that?  Well, if you want to help right now, at Christmas, in a small way, you could do much worse than support the National Literacy Trust's GIVE THE GIFT OF READING THIS CHRISTMAS campaign, and buy some of their Christmas cards.  A donation of £7 will mean a child gets a book of their own, but you'll have to hurry, because the cut-off date is December 12th.  All of us who read this blog will remember the wonder of escaping into another world through the pages of a book for the very first time.  What better gift to give someone than that?

Lucy's Greek Beasts and Heroes series is available here
'"Greek Beasts and Heroes" is a fabulous introduction to myths for confident readers - perfect for bedtime reading, although you'll probably have to read just one more...the quality is top notch throughout.' The Bookbag
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Lucy's website is at http://lucycoats.com

Books... and more books - Abi Burlingham

Okay, I confess, I am a bit of a technophobe. I am getting around this because I have to,
because that is the way things are, and I am becoming more comfortable with technology, with social media and all that this entails… well, a little bit! But here are some things you should
know: I don’t possess a smartphone (gasp) and I don’t have a Mac (even bigger gasp) oh, and I don’t have a kindle (stop gasping I say!) And here’s the biggy… I don’t want a kindle. No,
really, I don’t. I can see all the advantages that people frequently tell me about, while at the same time still shaking my head… “They’re good on planes”, so’s a book… “They’re good when you
go on holiday”, so are books… “They take up less room in your suitcase”, pack fewer shoes.

My mind resists them.
I can feel the kindle barriers go up at the merest hint of a mention…“Have you got a k….” VROOM! They’re up! But I appear to be in the minority, and feel that, as a writer that I
should embrace what could very well be my future. In fact, WILL be my future. ‘ Buttercup
Magic: A Mystery for Megan’, the first of my new series of books, due out in April 2012, is going to be an e-book – honestly, it says so on the back! Should I be pleased? I AM pleased, of course I am, but only because I know I should be. I have tried to examine the reasons for my resistance. My findings are as follows:

- We always had books at home – lots of them. As a child, my mum would read my favourite,
CS Lewis’s, ‘The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe’ to me night after
night. She would sit on the bed beside me, turn the pages, twist them round to show me when there was a picture, and put a book mark (remember them?) between the pages.

- I loved the Asterix books and comics and would devour them, laying them out at our dining room table and copying the wonderful pictures.

- As a teenager I would spend hours knelt by my parents’ bookcase, pulling books off the shelves, holding my nose to them and breathing in that lovely smell that only books have, turning the pages. Even if I didn’t actually read them, I would explore them and immerse myself in them. I remember as a teenager reading Germaine Greer’s ‘The Female Eunuch’, a collection of Sylvia Plath’s poems, and dibbing in to Gerald Durrell’s ‘My Family and Other Animals’, flicking to the pictures and marvelling at the way the paper became whiter and silkier on the pages
where the pictures were, at the covers and the little illustrations that decorated the spines.

- My mum had, as it turns out, one of the earliest editions of Cecily M Barker’s ‘The Flower Fairies’, and had traced around some of the fairies in pencil, leaving a light pencil imprint on the other side of the picture. This fascinated me, along with the triangles missing from the corners of pages and the pages that slacked as the cotton stretched.

- We had two libraries that we visited when I was a child, that I still have such wonderful recollections of. One was known as ‘The Pork Pie Library’ by all the locals because of its incredible shape, round, like a cake. This library left such an impression on me that I have featured it in ‘Buttercup Magic: A Mystery for Megan’. I still remember being overawed by the shape and size of the building, and remember the first time I ever saw a Miffy book amongst the shelves. I remember where I sat to look through it, how I felt at the time, small details.

Which brings me round to the reason the barriers go up. Fear. Fear that my children’s children won’t have this. That they won’t have book shelves in their houses full of books that they can take off and explore, that they won’t be able to sit on the floor and marvel at the pages with the corner turned over, or the handwritten name in the front, or the smell of the things.

So, you see, I won’t have one. I will remain kindle-less. Am I sad… am I ‘eck! I have my book cases bursting with books and will soon need another one… bring it on!

Of Naked, Wanton Encouragement & Gateway Drugs - Lucy Coats

This is a post about the importance of reading, though the title may have led you to think otherwise, and those were words used by Neil Gaiman in his Reading Agency Lecture.

'We have an obligation to imagine' … Neil Gaiman gives The Reading Agency annual lecture on the future of reading and libraries. Photograph: Robin Mayes

It's rare that I read something in a newspaper which makes me want to jump up and down, screaming 'yes, yes, yes' in a When Harry Met Sally moment.  The transcript of Neil's talk in the Guardian made me want to do just that, though, especially when he says this:

"I don't think there is such a thing as a bad book for children." 

I've talked before in these pages, many times, of the importance libraries had for me as a child. Without them there are whole worlds I would never have discovered, simply because my parents could not afford my reading addiction to fiction.  But, and this is a big but, there were books I was not allowed to bring home to read because they were 'bad'.  You may be imagining all sorts of things now.  Was I trying to bring home The Passionflower Hotel? Lolita? Lady Chatterley's Lover? No.  None of those.  I was trying to read Enid Blyton.

"Oh, those are dreadful books!" I was told.  "Terrible grammar.  Badly written. Read something else." So I did.  I read Elinor M Brent Dyer's Chalet School books instead.  But just occasionally I was able to sneak a Blyton through, and gradually (under the bedclothes at night) I worked my way through Malory Towers, The Secret Seven, The Famous Five, the Adventures et al. I remember feeling slightly ashamed of myself, though, as if enjoying Blyton as much as I did was a dirty little hidden secret.

This is why I get so cross when I hear people decry the success of 'pink sparkly series' or any kind of wildly popular set of books for children which might be written to a formula.  As adults we might not think they are great literature, nor want to read them ourselves - but why should we deny any child the right to find a way into the wonderful world of reading through them? If pink and sparkly or beastly and swashbuckling or soppy romantic or ghostly horror series fiction becomes what Gaiman calls 'the gateway drug to reading' for a child, then what is wrong with that? Apart from the 'bad Blyton', as a young teenager, I had a whole year where I read nothing but Mills and Boon and Barbara Cartland.  It didn't stop me going on to love Dickens, Austen, Ken Kesey, Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf and a whole host of other literary luminaries,

As Gaiman so rightly goes on to say:

"We need our children to get onto the reading ladder: anything that they enjoy reading will move them up, rung by rung, into literacy."

In a time when our literacy figures for young adults are some of the worst in the industrialised world, I don't care what a child reads, as long as they DO read.  It's the only 'drug habit' I ever want them to acquire.

Lucy's next Guardian Masterclass on 'How To Write For Children' is on 16th November 2013

Lucy's newest picture book, Bear's Best Friend, is published by Bloomsbury "A charming story about the magic of friendship which may bring a tear to your eye" Parents in Touch "The language is a joy…thoughtful and enjoyable" Armadillo Magazine. "Coats's ebullient, sympathetic story is perfectly matched by Sarah Dyer's warm and witty illustrations." The Times
   

Her latest series for 7-9s, Greek Beasts and Heroes is out now from Orion Children's Books.

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The Future of Children's Reading - Ellen Renner

The first week of November the University of Exeter is holding a children's literature festival, EXEtreme Imagination. Well known authors, including Michael Morpurgo, Michael Rosen, Beverly Naidoo, Mal Peet, Julie Hearne, Tim Bowler and Helen Dunmore will be giving talks and going into schools and libraries to meet Devon children. As a local writer, I'll also be taking part: going into schools and launching my second book, City of Thieves, at the end of the festival.

More and more frequently, I'm hearing other children's writers questioning whether or not festivals and school visits are a productive use of their time. Especially as they often don't get paid for festivals and because, in the current economic climate, fewer schools are able to afford the SOA rates for author visits. For many authors, income from school visits has traditionally formed a large part of their income so it's a serious concern. Although I can readily understand the frustration underlying these sorts of comments, I'd like to offer another point to consider.

The one thing that children's writers need is readers. And so it seems logical to me that promoting children's love of reading should be one of our primary concerns. If not for altruistic reasons, then purely out of self interest. Because no one should take it for granted that readers will always be out there.

Nine months into my own career as a published children's author, I feel at least nine years older and wiser. Because the times, they are a-changing. Established children's writers, whose careers began twenty, ten or even five years ago, entered a totally different world. The abandonment of the net book agreement and the predictable changes to the industry that have followed -- combined with difficult economic times and rapid technological change that may fundamentally alter the way books are made and sold -- mean that the situation for writers is almost certainly going to get worse, at least in the short term.

It would take a disposition cast in stainless steel not to be affected by the prognostications of doom and gloom flooding the world of children's books: the death of the book; the declining literacy of children; the closing of libraries; and possibly scariest of all, the increasing evidence that the very way we use the internet is changing the structure of our brains and the way we read. Novels may soon be a thing of the past as both children and adults become incapable of sustaining the concentration required to read one.

So, faced with the increasing difficulty in earning a living through writing alone, and the fact that our profession may soon no longer be either required nor desired by society, what is a children's writer to do? Some campaign for libraries, some blog, all of us try to write the best books we can, most of us do a certain amount of moaning and a whole lot of worrying.

The only thing I, personally, can think to do, is to go into local schools. I don't view school visits primarily as a way to supplement my income or even as a self-promotional tool -- book sales are largely insignificant. I view them as a form of outreach. I have had children buy a book who have never owned one before. They might even read it. Children need to meet writers. They need contact with adults whose job is playing pretend on paper, and who can get across to them how much fun reading and writing can be.

Story is fundamental. Along with music, dance and making images, humans need story-telling. These days they get it through lots of different media: TV, film, gaming, the internet. Books are a relatively new invention in the world of story and, after a few centuries, they may already be dying out. I hope not: I love books. But story will continue, in some form.

But whatever the fate of the book, and whether children read a paper book or read on a screen, it's vital that they read. They need stories: good ones. The ability to read well is one of the greatest gifts a child can be given. Stories have the ability to unlock whole worlds inside a child's mind, opening them to new ideas and experiences. That is quite enough reason in itself, but reading is also the key to social mobility, to aspiration, to achievement.

Children who read do well at school. Those who struggle to read often struggle through life. Getting children reading, and keeping them reading, is incredibly important to them as individuals and to society. For lucky children, it starts in the home, with parents reading to their babies and toddlers. It carries on in schools, where enlightened primary teachers read daily to their students. As writers, our job is to write stories that are good enough. Stories that make readers turn the pages.

The Exeter festival opens with a paneled debate: After Hogwarts: What is the Future for Children's Reading and Writing? The debate will take place on the evening of Wednesday the 27th of October. Members of the panel include Sara Davies, Executive Producer at BBC Bristol, Julia Eccleshare, Children's Editor at the Guardian, and Professor Debbie Myhill, Acting Dean of the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at Exeter, and Samantha Shipman from Liverpool's Reader Organisation.

If you would like to attend, or if you have a question you'd like to send in advance to the panel, please contact Pete Hodges at p.j.m.hodges@exeter.ac.uk.

I'm already composing my questions.

In Praise of A Good Book - Elen Caldecott

It is early on Sunday evening. I know I have to write this post, but this afternoon I bought a copy of Charlie Higson's The Dead and I just can't stop reading. I am over halfway through and I know I will finish it tonight. I am sure you all know exactly what it is like; I've been telling myself 'just one more chapter' for at least an hour. The book has sucked me in and everything else - eating, walking the dog, blog posts - is an annoying duty.

This is because I love to read. But more especially, I love to read children's books. I had thought that this was normal. However, recently I met a successful children's author who told me that she practically never reads children's books. I was pretty astonished, but the conversation was cut short and I wasn't able to thrust books into her hands while imploring 'read this, and this, and you have to read this.'

Aspiring children's writers are often told that they must read widely in the genre. The purpose of this is to give them an understanding of the marketplace. It's great advice, but it isn't why I read children's books. I read them for three main reasons: entertainment, support and inspiration.

Children's books are entertaining because their authors can go on elaborate flights of fancy (yesterday I read Mortal Engines) but they have to do so within a tight word count. This means that each word has to be chosen with the kind of precision that would make a haiku writer look sloppy. It is this breadth of vision coupled with the constraints of form that makes children's literature so vibrant, in my opinion.

I also read children's books because they are written by my colleagues: people I meet online, at events, at conferences and festivals. Like any other professional who takes their work seriously, I want to know who's doing what in my field. Not because they are competition, but because I love my work.

Finally, other children's writers are an inspiration to me. When I read their work and see what's possible, I feel a real burst of enthusiasm. Of course, there are also the moments of doubt where I think 'I can never write anything as good as this', but it gives me the impetus to at least try. To me, reading a Carnegie Medal winner is like a painter going to the BP Portrait Awards, or a musician listening to Mercury Prizewinners. It sets the benchmark and encourages them to aim higher with their own work.

This is, of course, a roundabout way for me to say that I can't write a blog post, I've got a brilliant book to get back to.


www.elencaldecott.com
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Dangerous Books for Boys? Celia Rees

'Gove's new curriculum: Dangerous Book for Boys', so read a headline on the front of The Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago. Nice sound bite, but the underlying sexism of the Secretary of Education's remark made me shudder. I leaf on through the paper to find a fresh faced young man in shorts - Gareth Malone - who has a new TV series designed to get boys to read. No mention of getting girls to read, but a quick perusal of the article shows that won't be necessary because girls like nothing more than to be sitting down reading a book, while boys are 'restless and won't want to sit down as much as girls,' according to Professor Stephen Scott of King's College, London. Now, I'm all for schemes for getting children to read, and read more, but was struck by the irony that Michael Rosen, when he was Children's Laureate, also had a series on BBC 4, called Just Read, where he transformed the reading culture of a school in Cardiff and sparked the Just Read Campaign, but it would never have occurred to Michael to work with just the boys. For him, it was, and is, supremely important for ALL children to read, regardless of gender.

I find this renewed emphasis on gender alarming. It seems to be a reaction to a perceived gap in attainment. Boys are falling behind and this is a reason for a full blown moral panic. No-one thinks to congratulate girls for their levels of attainment, for actually gaining parity and pulling ahead for the first time in history. The thinking seems to be, girls are OK because they like sitting down and learning stuff, but boys have to be taught differently because they are restless creatures who can't sit down, etc. etc. - was this true of Michel Gove himself, one wonders? Or of David Cameron and George Osborne and the rest of their cohort at Eton? Or the Miliband brothers at Haverstock Comprehensive School? Hmm, probably not. I bet they were all busy learning their lessons and sitting still as still.

The thing is, I don't like genderisation. Never have. I don't like it in education and I don't like it in books. I don't like the classification of books into girls' books and boys' books. It seems to me to be every bit as pernicious as age ranging. It also means I get classified as a writer, which I don't like, either. Over the last few years, I've noted a marked increase in questions like: 'Why do you always write books for girls?' The answer is: I don't. Even if the main character is a girl, it doesn't mean that the book is specifically for girls. I write for everyone, anyone. I don't discriminate along the lines of age or gender. I'm like Philip Pullman's storyteller in the market place. There for whoever wants to stop and listen. The riposte is often: 'Why do you have girls on the cover, then?' Again, why not? 'Because boys won't read it, stupid!' Really? There's a girl on the cover of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and sales figures would suggest that men are reading that book.

I've got news - from the same newspaper. Men and women are not wired differently. Their brains are the same. All these supposed 'differences' are created by social conditioning and environment. There is no Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus divide. So no more girls are from Planet Pink, Boys from Planet Zarg. Genderisation in literature coarsens the appetite while restricting the fare on offer. Maybe it's time for Children's Books to ditch genderisation and grow up.

How Has Reading Changed? by Nicola Morgan

Everything we do changes our brains. So, if there's something we are doing differently now, compared with how we did it previously, our brains will be changing or have changed to reflect that. If readers' brains are changing and if reading behaviours are changing, surely this will matter for writers?

Reading behaviours have changed over the last twenty or thirty years, at least in parts of the world where the digital age has arrived. Almost all of us read a great deal on-screen, and we spend a certain amount of our day reading material on websites. New research at the University of California, San Diego suggests that the average person today consumes nearly three times as much info as in 1960. According to The New York Times recently, "the average computer user checks 40 websites a day and can switch programs 36 times an hour."

We quickly become better at scanning headlines to decide what we want, and we skip and flit about, gathering snippets of info and processing it very quickly. Our brains change to reflect new skills. Gary Small's fascinating book, iBrain, is based partly on research on a group of people who had never used the internet before, alongside a control group. The study suggested - and this is backed up by other research into time taken to rewire neural connections - that after only five hours' practice, the brain of an internet beginner has changed, measurably, to reflect new skills and experience. And more practice or use produces more change, apparently.

(For more on the science of this, I recommend iBrain, and The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr.) But for now I want to talk anecdote, not science. I want to ask you if your experience matches mine.

Maybe five years ago, I was about to start writing The Highwayman's Footsteps. I wanted it  to be "rip-roaring adventure", thrilling historical drama, just like one of my favourite books as a teenager, The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas. I remembered that The Black Tulip had lots of gore and high tension and a very fast-paced story.

So, I took it from my shelf to re-read it, for the first time since I'd been a teenager. Well, I wasn't wrong about the gore. (Who says modern YA fiction is shocking? Blimey!) High tension? Well, maybe, but you had to read a LOT of words first and unpick reams of long paragraphs and complex sentences. It's turgid prose, with masses of subordinate clauses. The opening paragraph consists of a single sentence of 148 words.

Reader, I couldn't read it. Seriously.

So, what has happened in the intervening years? How did I turn from a teenager who could lap that up to an adult who couldn't keep her eyes on the page? But forget me - what about you? I'm guessing I'm not the only reader whose reading habits have changed. And it can't be to do with age, because surely a teenager would have if anything a greater need for pace than a middle-aged person? Are we just too busy nowadays to read slowly? Have we been subconsciously demanding faster books / simpler sentences over the last thirty years, so that now page-turnability is compulsory, whereas before (?) it wasn't? Has our definition of page-turnability changed?

If our reading habits, needs and tastes have changed, science tells us our brains have, too. There's nothing much we can do about this, although each of us in theory controls the mouse on our own computers. Besides, I'm not even saying that in terms of reading habits this is a bad change. (In terms of the arguments that people like Gary Small and many others are introducing regarding empathy and wisdom, that's a different matter.)

I'm just interested:

• Do you find it harder to concentrate on longer, denser texts than you used to?
• Have you had any Black Tulip examples, where you've tried reading something you once loved and then wondered what on earth has happened to your brain in the meantime?
• What might it mean for us as writers? Publishers say people want shorter, snappier reading material - are they right? 
• Do you think it matters?  Are you worried about any of this?

Answers in a comment. Oh, and keep it snappy - no one will read it otherwise.

Right, I'm off. Things to do, people to meet, tweets to tweet, info to process, websites to scan...

Patron of Reading - Linda Strachan

Yesterday I set off early for Liberton High School in Edinburgh, for what I knew was going to be an exciting day. I was officially becoming their Patron of Reading.  Edinburgh's first!

Liberton High Library

Their enthusiastic librarian, Christine Babbs had approached me some months ago and asked if I would consider becoming their Patron of Reading and I was delighted.  I had visited the school before and had always enjoyed my time there.

The Patron of Reading idea was started by Tim Redgrave, the current headteacher at Ysgol Esgob Morgan in St Asaph, Denbighshire, and author Helena Pielichaty.  It encourages schools and authors to pair up in a close relationship that benefits everyone.  You can find out more about it on the website  http://www.patronofreading.co.uk/ where schools and authors can put their names up to see if they can find a good match.

There are currently quite a number of Patrons of Reading all over the UK but so far there are only 4 in Scotland, three in the Falkirk area and as of yesterday I am the first in the capital. But I am sure there will soon be many more.

I was excited and keen to get started and Mrs Babbs and I had organised a varied timetable of events during the day.  It started with a slightly informal talk to some S5 and S6 students followed by a chance to meet with a great group of bloggers, from all year groups, who will be contributing to the blog I set up.

As Patron of Reading I am keen to get the whole school community involved not just the young people but the parents and all the staff at the school, whatever their role.  One way of doing this was to create a mini website and we are actively encouraging everyone in the school community to write blog posts or book reviews for us.
Our Books On The Brain  is the name of the blog/website and here you can see the book reviews, book lists, writing, news items and competitions.

The blogsite will develop over time as we add to it, but it looks like it will be a lot of fun and the bloggers had some great ideas.

Our first competition was to design the header and it was won by Jamie Cole was in S2 when he designed it last termt.  We were delighted by his great image.

After discussing the blog with our great team of bloggers I went to speak to some of the S4 classes about creative writing and about how much fun it can be doing research for my books.      At lunchtime there was the official launch party and, of course, there was cake!

In the afternoon I spoke to all the S1 and S2 classes and they were a great audience!  There were some fantastic questions and it was a wonderful way to end my first day as Patron of reading.  I am really looking forward to working with the school and getting to know more of the students and the adults in the school community.

For any authors who think they would like to become a Patron of Reading, I would recommend it.  There is no right or wrong way to do it, one of the joys is that it is up to you and your school to decide what you want to make of it and s much is possible!
If you are a school why not approach an author and see if they would become your Patron of Reading.

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Linda Strachan is the author of over 60 books for all ages from picture books to teenage novels and a writing handbook Writing For Children 


Her latest YA novel is Don't Judge Me  published by Strident 2012 

website  www.lindastrachan.com

International Literacy Day - Read all about it ... if you can - Linda Strachan

This year the focus for International Literacy Day is women.
 Unesco describes it as ' an occasion to celebrate women’s empowerment through literacy and pay tribute to the women and men who work behind the scenes who help others acquire literacy skills and enter a world of opportunities'


Being able to read and write is a skill most of us take for granted but in the modern world with all its great technological advances it is incredible that there are something like 759 million people who are illiterate and two out of every three of these people are women.


Imagine not being able to read your child a bedtime story, or the instructions on medicines or labels on food packaging or even the delights of being able to curl up with your favourite book.

These are basic skills without which many doors are closed - opportunities lost...or not even imagined.

I have been invited to speak and present prizes at the Encyclopaedia Britannica prize-giving event  which has been planned for today to celebrate International Literacy Day.

Over 3000 library members from all over Scotland took part in a quiz online which was being held in Scotland through Scottish libraries.  There were questions about Scottish history, politics and literature.  There are three great prizes, one for each category Adult, Student and Junior so that everyone could have a chance to take part by visiting their local library where they could access the Encyclopaedia Britannica free on line or using their library card they could log on at home.

As a writer there are times when I need to do a considerable amount of research for a book and this is where the library service is invaluable and the added choice of having resources available at home, as well as in my local library, is a great help. But in the library, the librarians are so helpful and knowledgeable that I love to go there.  They are so good at finding or suggesting books that might help in my research, or  books I might enjoy to read,  that I am dismayed when I read about plans to close libraries or even put them in supermarkets!

Literature is often a word with stuffy and self-important connotations but the written word in all its forms is vital to us.  Non fiction opens our eyes to the world around us and fiction can give us the opportunity to experience events or emotions, to think about possibilities or consequences that might never have occurred to us otherwise.  We learn through the experiences of the characters, or through reading about history we can perhaps avoid the mistakes of the past.
But in our everyday life we read signs, labels, directions and warnings all the time, often without thinking about it.We connect with people through the internet with emails, websites and blogs.


So today on International Literacy Day spare a moment to think about what you are reading, and about those who cannot read or write, and those who are working to help them acquire those skills.


Linda's latest book is Dead Boy Talking (Strident Publishing)
Follow her blog  - Bookwords - writingthebookwords.blogspot.com
Visit her website - lindastrachan.com

Weapons of Mass Satisfaction Anne Cassidy

There’s a lot of talk about libraries being slimmed down/starved of money/cut back/turned into fast food joints. There’s also talk of independent bookshops closing and books being sold at rock bottom prices in supermarkets. Then there’s Waterstone’s who are struggling to find new ways to do business in this battlefield. And don’t mention Amazon, that distant bomber in the sky, ready to download all sorts.

It’s like we’re on the losing side of a war. Who’d have thought it? Us plucky Brits.

But there’s something out there that I believe could halt this dismal retreat and that is the onward march of the Book Group (enough of the extended metaphor re war – Ed).

Three years ago, for personal reasons, I went into my library to find out about a Book Group. I was told it was full up. Three months later I asked again and was told that it was still full up. I enquired, politely whether it might be a good idea to have TWO book groups and the librarian smiled and said that they would if they had someone to run it.

Reader, I volunteered.

I ran the book group for two and a half years. We had to turn people away. This meant there were two full book groups in the library. There could have been three.

What did it mean for me? It meant 90 minutes once a month. I read one book a month that I didn’t necessarily choose to read. I met up with a dozen people who were passionate about books. It meant a lot of talking and ‘buzz’ about reading. I coordinated it so I had to analyse the book and decide which aspects I wanted to raise. I had to deconstruct a text and see how it was put together. Wasn’t this the kind of thing I was doing all the time, for my own writing?

It was very little work for a huge amount of pleasure.

Who were the members of this Book Group? They were ordinary people (female), retired, Mums, In-between jobbers. They were not from the Book World but they were lovers of books. In these meetings we talked about a whole range of books, not just the one we were reading. We talked about book events and courses and writing and books in other mediums.

I think it is people like these who are the foot soldiers (oops, sorry) of this book war. They will win it for us with their uncomplicated love of stories and reading. They don’t read The Bookseller but they read books. Their constant use of libraries and bookshops will keep us all in business.

There should be many more of them. In libraries, book shops, community centres, workplaces, schools, colleges, hospitals, theatre foyers, art galleries. In other words, any place where people come together.

However not all libraries have even one book group. I think there is a role here for writers or people who love books. Here is a plan: read it carefully: it will self destruct in 30 seconds.

Go into your library/ independent book shop and find out if they have a book group.
• If they do not, offer to run one.
• If they do have one, offer to run a second group (at your convenience).

If we could increase the number of book groups and thereby increase the amount of interest in books it can only do us good while getting us new pals, new readers, new connections in our own areas. The people I met were hungry for new books to read. Every time I mentioned one they scribbled it down on a piece of paper. They knew I was a writer but after two and a half years they knew that I was a READER first.

The message is clear: READ for VICTORY.

The Importance Of Reading - Lucy Coats

We all know about the importance of reading. Our children's education depends on them being able to do it. Sales of our books would be nil without readers. Reading is key in so many more senses than just those two examples.  But for the purposes of this post, forget all that.  What I'd like you to think about is the importance of reading to a writer--and by that I mean the personal sort of reading for pleasure, not the research kind. 

We are all, at some time in our writing careers, asked to give advice to would-be writers (in my case usually kids). I don't think I would be exaggerating if I said that 99.9% of us would tell them to read.  In fact, that's pretty much what it says on my own website under FAQs...'Read. Read read read and read some more. Read widely—diaries, letters, biographies, novels, travel, non-fiction. Read everything you can lay your hands on.'  But, given the pressures of a time-poor modern life, do we take our own advice? I wonder how many of US read as much as we used to--and when we do read, whether we keep up with what's being published in our own industry.  This was brought home to me last year in particular, when I took part in several rounds of the annual Kids' Lit Quiz.  I realised that although I was pretty ok on children's and YA books of the past, there were great gaping holes in my more recent knowledge.  Of course I'd read the 'biggies'--Garth Nix, Pullman, Rowling etc--mostly because they were what my own kids liked.  But there was a lot I'd missed.  So I set myself a task earlier this year, because I knew I was going to be flat on my back for a couple of months.  I would catch up on YA novels in particular and try to fill in some of those gaps.  So I'm now up to speed with Louis Sachar and Patrick Ness and Skulduggery Pleasant and many more.  I've also read a lot of new stuff published this year, including some fabulous reads by other members of the Scattered Authors' Society. In the process I've learned that there are a great many good books out there and a lot of talent.  I've also had a huge amount of fun (though I've spent far and away above what I should have on the book budget). But I'm sure I've missed masses too.  So if any of you out there have any suggestions for a 'non-obvious' and amazing recent  book you think I absolutely HAVE to read, then please tell me in the comments below or tweet me at @lucycoats.  I'm on a reading roll!

5 Great Depictions of Childhood in Novels for Adults - John Dougherty

Some people do find children difficult, don’t they?

And just as there are those who find children hard to relate to in real life, there are those who find them hard to relate to in fiction, and who therefore assume that any book with a child protagonist must ipso facto have been written with a readership of children in mind. This attitude generally goes hand-in-hand with the sort of assumptions about the merits of children’s fiction that makes those of us who write it rather cross.

Thankfully, there are also authors on the other side of the Great Fictional Divide who understand that childhood (in which, for the purposes of this piece, I include teenagehood as well) isn’t just a period of waiting to turn into a real person. So, as my contribution to the Awfully Big Second Anniversary Celebrations, here - in no particular order - are five of my favourite depictions of children and childhood in novels written for proper grown-ups:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
When I was a small child, I was told by my classmates that the house at the school gates was The Witch’s House. I remember going fearfully but excitedly up to it, one day after school, with one of my friends; and seeing, just as we reached it, an old woman’s face at the window.

We screamed and ran. We were afraid; but it was a safe fear - a fear of something we had created in our minds and fixed to someone else’s home. I don’t know why children do this - perhaps in order to practice dealing with genuinely scary things when we’re older - but in the Radley house, Harper Lee captures this sort of childhood totem perfectly; and in Scout, Jem and Dill, she creates three very real children, who play and negotiate and slowly learn about justice and injustice and the complexities of the adult world entirely convincingly.

To Kill a Mockingbird is fifty this year, and hasn’t aged a bit.

2. About a Boy, by Nick Hornby
We all knew a Marcus at school, didn’t we? Except, of course, for those of us who were Marcuses - bright in some ways and yet so naive in others; misfits who desperately needed to be taken under someone else’s wing.

It’s Hornby’s masterstroke, of course, that the wing in this case belongs to someone who bridges the gap between the child and adult states - a grown-up who’s never actually had to grow up.

About a Boy is a wonderful comedy of embarrassment, with a lot of unsentimental warmth and down-to-earth wisdom about families and growing up; and with two very real boys of vastly different ages at its centre.

3. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
Children’s novelists often find ingenious ways to get rid of the adults who might otherwise spoil their heroes’ adventures; but of course, thanks to Golding, we all know what might happen if you really did that; and it isn’t pretty.

Lord of the Flies genuinely deserves its classic status, not least because its characters are such real boys. Every playground has its Ralphs, and its Jacks, and its Piggys; and the events of the novel are, in many ways, merely exaggerations - or logical extensions - of the politics of the playground. And, perhaps, of the politics of the workplace, too.

4. A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil, by Christopher Brookmyre
A murder mystery with a difference: almost everyone involved in the case - the suspects, the investigating Detective Superintendent, the pub landlady with her ear to the ground, the possibly corrupt politician, the world-weary hero, and even one of the two mutilated corpses - went to school together; and it’s in their schooldays that the story is rooted.

Most of the narrative takes place in flashbacks, which start on the first day of infant school and end with the end-of-secondary-school leavers’ party. Through these flashbacks Brookmyre builds up a fantastically well-rounded picture of the entire cast, bringing a new dimension to the idea of character development, as we see how his perfectly-realised five-year-olds grow into the adults of the murder mystery.

A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil is very dark, very funny, and a flawless depiction of a certain type of British childhood. And it shows, as JoJo the landlady says, how “bad weans don’t necessarily turn intae bad adults. And the same goes for the good yins.”

5. Cat’s Eye, by Margaret Atwood
Not just my favourite of this list, but perhaps my favourite book for grown-ups ever, Cat’s Eye is another novel told largely in flashback. Artist Elaine Risley returns to her native Toronto for a retrospective, and finds herself... well, retrospecting. Where Brookmyre’s novel takes a whole range of characters through an entire childhood, Atwood focuses on just two children - Elaine and Cordelia - and on two shared periods of their childhood, to provide a gripping analysis of the relationship between bully and victim, and to show how childhood isn’t just a waiting period but a time which shapes our entire existence. As Elaine says, “Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.


So, there’s my five. Anyone got any others?

John's website is at www.visitingauthor.com

REACHING GREAT HEIGHTS for ROOM TO READ – Dianne Hofmeyr

There are some incredible athletes amongst our ABBA bloggers but if scaling Everest only happens in your dreams, read on – Just a few weeks ago on 14th May, a friend of mine, Rob Hart, made the summit and raised $15 000 in sponsorship for the Room to Read Project in South Africa and for building a school in Nepal. The trip took seven weeks, starting in Kathmandu on March 30th, and ending there on May 17th.

Passionate about Room to Read Rob and his wife, Anna, first got involved with the project when they moved to Singapore in 2008. Room to Read daily transforms the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on books, literacy and gender equality in education. Apart from building libraries and encouraging children to read, they support girls, who in most circumstances would’ve had to drop out of school, with special scholarships which give them the chance to complete secondary school and reach their full potential.

But back to Everest!

Rob has climbed the Seven Summits at the rate of one a year since 2003. He says: 'I’ve dreamt of climbing Everest since I can first remember, and that dream morphed to include the highest mountain on each continent. The attraction of frozen digits, howling winds and inedible food eludes many, but to me the draw is that such adventure and challenge is still available in modern times.'

This year’s success was his second attempt at Everest. In 2005 the mountain defeated him with icy winds. Even this year’s assent was not without its drama. Coming face to face with other climbers on their way down who hadn’t made the summit, he writes: ‘We meet mostly disappointed climbers coming down in the other direction, because the wind was quite strong the day before, May 12. One girl sobbing through her oxygen mask stands out, her dream in tatters for the time being. I know how that feels from last time. Some of the others did not make the top, but are just happy to be getting down alive.’
The ‘getting down alive’ part is brought grimly home when they came across a Japanese climber who’d died two days before. ‘Apparently he had got hypothemia, become disorientated and when his sherpa tried to help him, he became aggressive and pulled off his goggles, and so they had to leave him. He was still attached to the rope, looking like a wax model, and just a few meters off that path, so we cut him loose and retied the rope so that climbers could continue to use the fixed line.’ ‘A quick 9 hour slog up the mountain and I am on top of the world. As you can see I was tired enough to want to sit down. With only 2 of us up there it was impossible to hold the flag out properly - Mike took 3 photo's of me with my flag with his hands out of the gloves in -20C, and this is the best one. You can see the South African flag with the Room to Read logo beneath it.'
For the record, the same Mike Horst who took the picture, went on to climb the Lhotse peak too and summited at 5am the next morning, becoming the first person ever to climb two 8,000m peaks within a 24 hour period! No wonder they’re drinking a beer! And below huge hugs for Daddy! Very few of us will make the Everest summit, but right now the Room to Read logo is lying at 8,848m at the top of the world! Quite an endorsement of reading!

So if anyone wishes to support Room to Read as they transform the lives of millions of children in the developing world – one book, one child, one community at a time, click here .

Just William, Just One more Time - Emma Barnes

Some books you don't get - however loved and praised they are by everyone else. I have never got along with Just William.

I love the idea of it: the trouble-prone child, the continual scrapes, the childhood anarchy, the poking fun at the grown-ups. It's all the kind of stuff I put into stories myself. And it's not that I have a problem with dated books about English school boys - give me a copy of Jennings and Darbishire by Anthony Buckeridge, and I will laugh so hard I'm falling off the sofa.

But every time I pick up a copy of one of William's adventures, I struggle. Just not for me, I thought. The language seemed convoluted, not witty. William's manner of speech annoyed me. Maybe I didn't read it at the right age. Maybe it's one of those books that adults love for nostalgia, but in actual fact is not that good. Maybe it works for others but it's not my cup of tea. (Not everyone likes the same thing, which is something I always stress talking to children in schools. A book may have prizes, or be your teacher's favourite - but that doesn't mean you have to like it. The important thing is don't give up on books - just go back to the shelf until you find a book you do like.)

It slightly annoyed me that Just William was constantly reissued and Jennings wasn't. It was on the radio too. And lots of children seemed to enjoy it. It was, a friend told me, her kids' favourite. What was wrong with everyone, I wondered?

Then something happened. I happened to watch an episode on the TV. (I didn't even know the BBC had adapted Just William. If I did I would have snorted "typical".) But I happened to watch it and it was ...good. Delightful. Clever. Witty. Best of all, it was extremely FUNNY.

So as soon as I have written this, I will be heading for the book shelf, digging out my neglected copy, ready to give William Brown one more try. Which makes me wonder - which books would you give another chance? Which books did you discover first thanks to TV?
www.EmmaBarnes.info

Writing for non-readers - Anne Rooney

Yesterday, Keren David blogged about breakthrough books - the titles that grab a child's imagination so that they really want to read and their reading takes off. That's a wonderful moment - but it doesn't always happen. For some children, the magic of reading doesn't manifest itself at 5 or 6 or 7 - or at all. Maybe the child is never introduced to a book that really speaks to them; maybe they live in a home without books and have over-stressed teachers who don't find the right book for them. Maybe they have a physical problem that makes reading or holding a book difficult, or a learning difficulty that means there are huge barriers to reading and engaging imaginatively. Or maybe English is not the language they speak at home and so reading it is too much of a struggle for the wonder to break through.


Whatever the reason, there are children who are left out of the party, who can't read or don't see the point of reading, who struggle or avoid reading (even coming up with ornate strategies to avoid admitting they can't read). By the age of 9 or 10 they are labelled non-readers, or reluctant readers or struggling readers. And soon they are left behind, with the rest of their world whizzing off ahead at secondary schools where reading is taken for granted and essential - no GCSEs if you can't read, no matter how good at science or maths or history you may be. They're soon written off, and many slip into misbehaving and become totally disengaged unless someone can get them reading. And that's where we come in. No one else can do it. Teachers and librarians are essential, of course, but if there are not books for these children, no amount of encouragement and expertise will get them to make the leap into reading for pleasure.

A child of 9, 10, 11 or even 15 or 16 who can't read won't be inspired to read by books intended for five-year-olds. Imagine you had a child of 12 months who had an accident or physical disability that meant they didn't learn to walk at the 'right' time. When he or she was better at the age of three, you wouldn't put them in shoes that fit a one-year-old and expect them to walk in those. So why do the same with books? Children need books appropriate to the interests and experiences of their chronological (or emotional) age, no matter what their reading age. A child of 13 who struggles with reading won't be inspired by a story about a panda who doesn't like a new sibling, or a little bunny whose parent loves him THIS much. They'll feel patronised, insulted, disengaged, alienated - and their belief that reading is not for them will be reinforced.

They need exciting stories - and non-fiction books - about the topics and themes that excite other children their age. Books with simple vocabulary and sentence structure but about crimes, ghosts, football, romance, spies, vampires, space travel, monsters, challenging life situations, and all the other things that 'ordinary' books for young people are about. Sue Purkiss reported this week on the Society of Authors' conference on books for 7-9s, the poor relations of books for older children and picture books. If they're the poor relations, books for struggling readers are the beggars outside the gates.


There are publishers producing wonderful books for this readership. The best known is Barrington Stoke, but there are others, including the tiny but excellent Ransom and mainstream publishers who have lists for this group, such as Evans. It's a struggling market, though. More than any other area of children's publishing, it's vulnerable to cuts in schools and libraries funding. Often, the parents of the readers don't buy books. They may not read themselves, or may not be able to afford books. The books are short, of course, so they don't look like good value (a problem for picture books, too). In schools and libraries, although the value of the books is recognised, it can be hard to justify spending on books that only a small proportion of the pupils may read - even though the needs of those children are great and urgent.


For the writer, books for this readership are great fun to write. It's a real challenge, a very exciting one. You have to pack a lot of plot, character development and some sophisticated themes into few, simple words. Or put a lot facts in a very easy and accessible form. I'm currently writing a series of six vampire novels for teens. Don't yawn, I know vampires have been done to death. But not, as my publisher points out, for readers who could never tackle something as long as Twilight. Where are the teen vampire novels less than ten thousand words long? Why are these kids left out of the vampire party? They want to read what their friends are reading. And the same is true for those who would rather read exciting spy stories or science fiction or adventure or crime or horror. Just because a child can't read well doesn't mean they're stupid. Books for them are not, and must not be, dumbed down. The readers probably know a good deal more than you do about a lot of subjects, will enjoy challenging ideas to think about, and things that link in with their world in unexpected ways.

These books are fun to write, but they're not easy. It can also feel as though you're 'wasting' a plot and characters that could go in a full-length novel for mainstream readers - you have a brilliant idea and you are not letting it stretch and enjoy itself. There is no chance it will become a bestseller and make lots of money. The readership may be fairly small. Why would you do it? Because it's a really enjoyable challenge as well as incredibly worthwhile. Tight writing and fast plotting, making every word work because the child has to invest a lot in reading every word - these are not easy to do, but it's very satisfying when it works. I love writing for this readership and do it a lot. It doesn't pay well - in fact, it pays very, very badly - and you don't get great Nielsen figures or fame. But you get huge satisfaction and it really sharpens your writing skills. Better still, it might make a difference to some child, somewhere, who once thought reading was for other people. You can't put a price on that.

(You can follow the progress of #thosevampires on twitter, @annerooney. My books for this readership are all on my website, mixed in with the other books but labelled hi-lo - high interest, low reading level.)