Do Teens Read? Savita Kalhan

In April 2013, Nielsen conducted a survey in the US of the reading habits of teens aged between 12 and 17. Nielsen conducted another similar survey in September 2013 of teens in the UK, which also looked at their involvement in other activities. The results of both surveys are very interesting if somewhat worrying. Both studies came to the conclusion that teens are reading less compared to previous years, but also that they are doing far less of all the other activities they used to do too. What’s taken their place? Social networking sites, texting, You Tube and gaming apps – all of which they have easy access to as more and more teenagers own a mobile phone, a tablet or a laptop.

The answer to the question - How often do you read for fun? – was an eye-opener.

The percentage of US teens who read occasionally was 32 %. The percentage who read very often was 29%, with 39% who either do not read or seldom read. In the UK the figure for teens who read occasionally readers fell from 45% to 38% over the last year. Those who read often fell from 23% to 17%. Teens who seldom or never read comprised 27%, a rise of 13% relative to the previous year.

It’s a worrying development, particularly as it’s not just reading that is suffering. Teenagers have dropped or downscaled their involvement in many other activities, including hobbies, art, sports, and outdoor pursuits. What’s taken their place? Well, according to the study, teenagers are spending more time on social media, texting, You Tube and playing on game apps.

In the US  68% of teens read print books, but only 10% read ebooks. By April 2013, Print book readers had gone down to 45%, while the percentage reading ebooks had risen to 25%.

In the UK in 2012, 21% of teens said they read books digitally, which went up this year to 33%.

The US study clearly demonstrates that many teens still borrow their books from the library. They also still take guidance from parents and teachers and librarians, as 56% will read a book suggested by a parent, and 52% from a librarian or teacher. I don’t have the relevant figures for UK teens, but it would have been interesting to compare them.

It might also be interesting to see a graph comparing the reading habits of teens in the UK and the US. On the other hand, do the figures really need to be compared? It’s quite clear that reading amongst teens is declining.

Is the recent decline in reading a development or a trend? I’m not sure. I haven’t seen the figures from say five or even ten years ago. It’s very concerning if it constitutes a long term trend, particularly if the time that teenagers spend on the internet is at the expense of all other activities.

But what the UK study did show was that teenagers’ interest in books had not significantly declined. The time they might have spent reading a book was gradually being replaced by ‘activities’ that were internet based. How would we have coped with that much free entertainment at our finger tips, I wonder?

In the UK there are lots of initiatives to encourage teens to read more, and some of them are very encouraging. At the Kid Lit Quiz, which I attended last week, there was a hall full of engaged enthusiastic pre-teens, mainly aged between 11 and 12, who clearly read an enormous amount. It was inspiring to see. I think we might need a lot more of these initiatives over the years to come. And failing that, might US-style “interventions” be in order...?


www.savitakalhan.com

We warned you this would happen - John Dougherty

I make no apologies for being angry.

If you haven’t already read or watched the excellent second annual lecture to the Reading Agency, delivered last month by the equally excellent Neil Gaiman, please do. You’ll find much to think about and much to agree with, and perhaps you’ll learn something new, too.



I learned something new. I learned this:

According to a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, England is the "only country where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both literacy and numeracy than the youngest group, after other factors, such as gender, socio-economic backgrounds and type of occupations are taken into account".

The youngest age-group in question is 16-24, and I’m fairly sure I know why they’ve done so badly. You see, it was 16 years ago - when the youngest in that group were babies, and the eldest were only 8 - that the government began to micro-manage our children’s literacy learning.

Oh, there’d been political interference before then, and increasingly so; but it was with David Blunkett’s appointment as Education Secretary that Her Majesty’s Government became so arrogant as to think that some bloke in Whitehall whose sole experience of education was having gone to school was better placed to decide exactly how children should be taught than were trained, qualified, experienced teachers who actually had those children in front of them.

Blunkett introduced something called the Literacy Hour. Teachers protested: it would inhibit creativity; it would bore children; it would dampen enthusiasm for reading. Tough, said Blunkett, you’re doing it. It’ll raise standards.

Well, Mr Blunkett, it would appear you were wrong about that.

I was a supply teacher in those days, and I remember groans from the children when I announced it was time for Literacy Hour. I remember seeing the light in children’s eyes go out as I cut them short, wanting to hear what they had to say but knowing that I had no choice but to keep to the government-imposed clock. I remember coming home to my wife and saying, “When we have children, I don’t want anybody doing to them what I had to do to those children today.”

But however much teachers complained, the response from government was always, “We know best.”

They didn’t. They really didn’t.

And they still don’t. You see, this is not a party-political complaint. Things are no better now that New Labour is but an old memory. Now we have the coalition. We have Michael Gove ordering a one-size-fits-all phonics regime. We have the top-down imposition of a phonics test that is not fit for purpose. We have teachers pressured into the sort of behaviour recently observed by Marilyn Brocklehurst of Norfolk Children’s Book Centre:

Just sat in and watched a phonics lesson. Child was corrected for reading 'ing'. No Joe, you must say i...nnnnnn....ggggggg. Hmmm
— Marilyn Brocklehurst (@MarilynBrock) November 8, 2013

We have so much evidence to tell us that if our children are going to achieve in literacy - and in school, and in life - they need to learn to read for pleasure. To read for fun. And we have a growing body of evidence to tell us that for this to happen, politicians must not be allowed to micro-manage any aspect of their learning.

But what can we do? Nothing. The Secretary of State for Education has assumed the powers of a dictator - literally; there’s no way of holding him, and it usually is a him, to account. Experts who challenge him are dismissed as, well, whatever is the political insult du jour - at the moment, it’s Marxist - whilst their views are misrepresented way past the point of parody.

I began this piece with the wild-haired Neil Gaiman. By the end, I’ve come to the wild-haired Russell Brand (language warning).



Maybe he’s right. Maybe the whole system is no longer fit for purpose, if it ever was.

______________________________________________________________________

John's next book:  

 Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Badness of Badgers, illustrated by David Tazzyman & published by OUP in January 2014

Have your name shouted by a badger and get a signed book by bidding online in the Authors for Philippines charity auction. 
Well over 200 other items, including many from Awfully Big Blog Adventure contributors.

My Enid - by Elen Caldecott

I was charmed and delighted when the Bookwitch reviewed How Ali Ferguson Saved Houdini. She compared it to Enid Blyton, but much better written. I loved the review, but this comment has stayed with me. Is Enid really that bad?
I am sure that we all watched Enid, the BBC4 dramatisation of her life. I watched in shock as Helena Bonham Carter turned a childhood hero into a monster. Apparently, she was self-absorbed, manipulative and borderline abusive towards her own children.
But the critical-rot for Blyton set in much earlier than this drama. For years, she has been dismissed as a writer; not simply for her archaic attitudes (it is always the 'swarthy' character that has to be watched in the Famous Five), but also because of her carbon copy plots, her 2D characters, her wilful use of adverbs.

Even in the 1980s, when I was a child, some of my friends weren't allowed to read her. These same friends were also subjected to such outlandish things as soya milk and yoga, so in my eight-year-old eyes they were already to be pitied. But to be deprived of Enid Blyton seemed especially cruel, because for me, Enid Blyton was so much more than a writer. She was a haven. There were days when I desperately needed to hide and I hid inside my collection of Blytons.

Don't worry, this post isn't the opening of a misery memoir. Rather, I'd like to consider what it was about these critically trashed books that made them so powerful.

I knew that the Famous Five and the Five Find-Outers and the Secret Seven and the 'of Adventure' lot were all the same characters but with different names. I knew that. But I didn't care. In fact, the very opposite. I was glad to see them again in their different incarnations.

And I knew that Malory Towers and St Claire's weren't real (although that didn't stop me demanding a detour when, on a family holiday in South Wales, I misread a signpost). But despite the fact that I knew it was fiction, I had such a yearning to be part of the stable, unchanging world of lacrosse and midnight feasts and the upper fourth. It didn't matter that I couldn't tell a lacrosse stick from a liquorice stick. These girls were my friends. I loved that their characters didn't change, that there wasn't an emotional journey in sight.

I guess I'm saying that Enid Blyton's faults were the things that I loved - the unchanging, predictable world of a middle-class country I had never known.

It is telling, I think, that in the 9-12 section of my local Waterstones, Enid Blyton still takes up the most shelf space - yes, Michael Morpurgo has a fair spread and Jacqueline Wilson does even better. But Blyton is still Queen. Kids still need stories they can rely on.

Recently I read Ali Sparkes' Frozen in Time. It is a deliberate and well-observed homage to the Famous Five. I enjoyed reading it very much. I was so pleased to find that the shades of Blyton live on in contemporary children's literature because we can be too snobbish, I think. We want our books to be weighty and meaningful. We want them to explore the 'real' world - I do this myself, so I do know this is a pot-kettle situation. But, sometimes, when life gets tough, you don't want to read about woe. Sometimes, all you want is to whiz around country lanes with a knapsack full of ginger beer. Sometimes, you just need Enid.
www.elencaldecott.com
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The Kindness of Authors - John Dougherty

This is a story about a little boy, and his favourite author, and the difference a few moments of kindness can make.

Sam has just turned nine, and he asked for a birthday cake shaped like a platypus, for two reasons: he’d seen platypuses on his recent Australian holiday, and he’d read in Mr Gum & the Goblins that Andy Stanton’s favourite word is ‘platypus’. It’s a bit of a running joke; in every book the favourite word changes. Sam knows that, but still…

Anyway, this is where I come in. Sam is a friend of mine - he and his family live across the road from me - and so is Andy Stanton. I was lucky enough to find myself on a discussion panel with Andy a few years ago, on which occasion I prostrated myself before his comedy genius and he was kind enough to offer effusive words of praise about my Zeus books, and, well, I like to feel we bonded.

So I texted Andy with a brief explanation, asking if he’d mind sending me a text that said Happy birthday, Sam and something about platypuses. It would, I thought, be quite special to show it to Sam round about candle-blowing-out-and-cake-cutting time.

Andy, bless him, texted back immediately with the generous message: Give me a ring from the party and put him on the line and i’ll say hi.

Sam, of course, was awestruck. He was a touch monosyllabic at first; and Andy had to loosen him up a bit:

Andy: Hello? 
Sam (shyly): Hi.
Andy: Is that Sam? 
Sam (lost for words): Yeah.
Andy: Do you know who this is?
Sam (still lost for words): Yeah.
Andy: Yes, that’s right; it’s Jacqueline Wilson.
Sam (little smile appearing like sunshine through the clouds): No you’re not! You’re Andy Stanton!

And they chatted for a minute or two - with Andy doing most of the chatting - before Sam returned to the party, and to the envy of his friends (including one who muttered, “I bet it’s not the real Andy Stanton, it’s just someone pretending to be him!”).

So - what’s the big deal? Successful author does nice thing for kid. So what?

Well, the ‘so what’ is that Sam can be painfully shy - and up until a year or so back, he was  selectively mute. He often finds conversations with adults difficult, and he’s never - I’ll repeat that: he’s never - managed a phone call of that length before except with his mum or dad. Phone calls and conversations with adults are, by and large, things of stress rather than joy for him.

Yet this was special. Sam’s been upset about not getting tickets for Andy’s event in Cheltenham this year; but that night, when they were talking about the party, and the games, and the cake, and of course the phone call, Sam’s mum said to him,

“It’s a shame we can’t see him at Cheltenham this year, isn’t it?”

and Sam replied, “It doesn’t matter now. That was even better!”

Sometimes, we have no idea what powerful figures we can become in the lives of the children we write for.




All the names in this post have been changed except for mine, Andy Stanton’s, Mr Gum’s, Zeus’s, and the platypus’s.

John’s website is at www.visitingauthor.com.
His most recent books are:
-> a retelling of Finn MacCool and the Giant’s Causeway for the Oxford Reading Tree 
-> Bansi O’Hara and the Edges of Hallowe’en   
-> Zeus Sorts It Out (“Very, very funny!” - Andy Stanton. And he’s not just saying that).

High Ambition - Andrew Strong

Telling a class of children a story can be magical. But wash your hands first, because if a story works, you'll have them eating out of your palms. I like to tell stories as often as I can; sometimes I'll just make a story up. I'll wait until almost the last moment, until I'm in front of them, and savour the feeling of a story popping out of nowhere. Last week I made up a story about a man who fell asleep on an inflatable bed and drifted out to sea. It was very exciting. Until I got to the end because I couldn't think of one. So I asked the children. The consensus was they wanted him to drown. I didn't let him, of course, he was too nice.

And not so long ago I told the story of Joseph and his brothers. Just as I was about to begin, one child put up her hand and asked, "is this R.E.?" I nodded vaguely. She groaned and sunk in her seat. But after three or four minutes, every face was turned to me. It was wonderful. Stories are powerful.

But when it comes to reading books to children, rather than telling stories, there are more challenges. After all these years, I think I know what to look out for. First, there must be natural breaks. Twenty minutes is enough. I need somewhere to end so that children are begging for more. Second, I don't want to explain too much. Keep content simple.

A few months ago I read a class some of the Mr Gum books. When I came to the line 'he was a gingerbread man with electric muscles' I almost suffered a stroke. I could not continue: the place was in uproar. I was shown the door - it was red, and covered with scratches. Some people, it seemed, had tried to claw their way out of that room.

After the Gum books, I wanted to be a little more ambitious. I wanted to try longer chapters and difficult vocabulary. I chose a book as far from Mr Gum as possible and by one of my favourite children's writers, Geraldine McCaughrean.

I say 'one of my favourite children's writers' but I have long held a suspicion that actually McCaughrean's books are far too sophisticated for ten year olds. But putting my doubts to one side, I began.

'The Kite Rider' is set in China during the thirteenth century, its vocabulary is quite tricky, and the background needs some explaining. I would need to take my time. Consider that there are some children who have only the simplest grasp of where they live. Yes, you point to a place on a map, you can tell them, show them again, repeat where it is, get them to explain to you. But ultimately if they have haven't travelled, not even as far as the nearest city, they can have little grasp of the scale or nature of the world beyond. China is a big step for them. Thirteenth century China, an enormous leap. Even one of the brightest children asked me if they had electricity back then. There is work to do before a book such as this can be tackled.

But, ten chapters in they were riveted. They loved the main protagonist, Haoyou, and suffered every one of his blows. McCaughrean is a writer of enormous scope, she can unpick a character's motives and lay out each thread for you to examine. Nine and ten year olds may have difficulty in appreciating this, but as the story is so powerful they are swept along.

I doubt that many of the children in the school, and very few I have taught, could have read this book alone. At the most there may be one or two who could have a go, but the vast majority would find it an impossible task.

Yet I think they need exposure to this quality of writing. It is simultaneously panoramic and microscopic. Including the preparation, it's taken us the best part of two months to read together. For some of these youngsters, it's become a big part of their lives. I am yet to find out exactly how much they enjoyed it, but I know that, in years to come, they will use the experiences of the Haoyou to discover their own world, and when they do, the flight of 'The Kite Rider' will have been time well spent

ENCHANTMENT - Dianne Hofmeyr

Frank Cottrell Boyce came rushing up the steps to the altar of St James the Last church like a choir boy late for a service… his boyish charm and enthusiasm infectious. He reminded us at the CWIG Conference this past Saturday that the business we writers are in, is the business of enchantment. And that real creativity should feel like a game, not a career.

A huge relief… as prior to this it was ‘gloom and doom’ mood and the need for bells, drums and whistles on school visits. So not only was his ebullience reaffirming but it was also reassuring to be reminded that ‘story’ itself is sufficiently mysterious to make the simple act of reading to children enough to feed their imagination. ‘I’ve got a story to tell…’ is all that’s needed.

One of the debts Frank Cottrell Boyce owes his favourite children's authors is the way they alerted him – at an impressionable age – to various small pleasures. He’s still able to give himself a sense of freedom and carelessness by setting out on a walk with a couple of hard-boiled eggs in his pocket, thanks to reading Milly Molly Mandy as a child.

Tove Jansson writing about the mystery of others in her Moomin family helped him choose his wife. Little My, small and determined with her energy and fiercely independent nature was the person he saw when his future wife rushed into the Library. (where else does a writer find a potential partner?) He said that Jansson showed him, how in a family it’s the small pleasures and idiosyncrasies that keep us together when we start to grow apart, and we can express love merely by sharing a meal, even if everyone's eating something quite different, or making sure the roof isn't leaking.

He finds it uplifting that Jansson could describe so precisely and positively the relationship between a family and one of its members who chooses to live a different life – how this difference somehow enriches the others, how they yearn to go off but know they can't, how they long for her return but need her to keep adventuring.

He urged us not to share writing skills… ‘there are already enough writers’… but to share reading. That true creativity comes from listening and from winnowing. (lovely word) He feels the world is so driven by immediate response that we’re already scanning the sentences as someone speaks to put our own view in place. And that teachers are bound by objectives and outcome... ‘Look out for the Wow words class!’ type of agendas. But that you can’t teach children to love reading, you have to share reading.

What he found reaffirming about working with film-maker and producer Danny Boyle, was that he had ‘a reading corner’ whenever he worked on a film, and everyone busy on the project was encouraged to browse and to leave books.

Books don’t have to be mainstream. They can be voices from the edge. We live by stories and we need all the voices.

Frank Cottrell Boyce had me wondering about the books we as writers must remember vividly from our own childhood, as being the first books that sparked our imagination. Are there stories that are common to us?

For my own part I remember reading Pookie the Rabbit as a child. Coming from an environment of the sea, I was enchanted by the idea of the deep, dark forest where rabbits had wings. The Pookie stories literally took me into the woods of enchantment.

These words spoken by Badger’s in Barry Lopez’s children’s book Crow and Weasel, take on new meaning after listening to Frank Cottrell Boyce:

I would ask you to remember only this one thing. The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put stories in each other’s memory. This is how people care for themselves.

http://www.diannehofmeyr.com/

Down With Spelling! - Emma Barnes

Here's a radical proposal - one to shock my fellow writers to the core. (This is my first ABBA post so I thought I'd kick off with some controversy.) I love writing. I want the children I meet to love writing too. But sometimes when I'm in schools, with my Visiting Author hat, I find the experience bitter-sweet. Why?

Because although the children I meet love hearing stories, acting out stories and inventing new stories, often the whole process of "writing down" the stories is still painful for them. I work mainly in primaries and even in Year 6 this is still the case for some children. Sometimes reading stories - the same stories that they love to hear - is a struggle too.

Children should read. It is the key that unlocks their educational future. It is also one of the greatest (and cheapest, most convenient and therefore most widely accesible) pleasures in life. Yet for many primary age children reading is not pleasure. It is dull - all about deciphering, not romping through a story.

We could get side-tracked into some educational debates here. But one thing that strikes me more and more: English is HARD. Learning to read and write is DIFFICULT.

No, you say. Surely it's as easy as One, Two, Three...A,B,C.

Well, just think about that. Most British children today learn using phonics, and a lot of them make rapid progress, sounding out the words. Until they reach the Tricky Words. One and Two are Tricky Words. Just look at them. They make no sense. You know how to pronounce them only because you have learnt them as individual words. The trouble is so many words are tricky. Such basic words as I and You and Me and There and Their and Go and Come and Who and....Sausage. All tricky. I could go on.

It doesn't have to be this way. In Italian all words are phonetic - their spelling is consistent with their sound. In fact, I'm told in Italian there is no word for Spelling! Think of that - and think of the time freed for more exciting things.

Maybe it is time to reform the English language - the spelling of it, anyway. Then there would be fewer seven, eight, nine year old children who although they have the ability to appreciate the compex dialogue and storyline of a film like Shrek are still struggling their way through The Gingerbread Man when it comes to the written page. Or who can't wait for the next instalment of The Twits when their teacher reads it to them (all children love Roald Dahl is the motto of every primary teacher) but can't manage to read the book themselves.

Of course it would be a bit of a downer for all of us old(er) folks who find One, Two, Three as obvious as falling off a wall. But wouldn't it be worth it to let more people in?

OK, time for the brick bats!

Putting Pressure on Pupils? - John Dougherty

I love doing school visits.

I love writing, too, but it would drive me mad if I spent all my waking, or at least working, hours alone in my shed. I like - no, I need - to get out there and perform, too.

I’ve been doing a lot of it lately. I suspect it’s proximity to both World Book Day and the end of the financial year that leads to the annual rash of bookings throughout late February and much of March; but whatever the reason, it’s been great to get out of the confines of my admittedly lovely shed and meet both children and staff at a real variety of schools, from Gloucester to Bedford and from Leicester to Exeter.

There’s always the occasional niggle in school visit season. Inevitably, at some point, somebody at some school somewhere will do something to cause offence. When this happens, it’s important to keep things in perspective. What was said may not have been exactly what was meant; that omission was probably a genuine oversight; teachers are busy people who should be forgiven for not always being able to keep every single plate spinning. Yes, I’ve just driven for two hours to get here; but she may have spent the last forty-five minutes trying to control an uncontrollable Year 5. And, of course, while the best school visits - the ones where the children have been prepared for my visit and are excited about meeting a Real Live Author - are also usually those on which I get treated like a celebrity, it’s important not to let that go to my head and expect the red carpet treatment everywhere.

There was, however, one niggle from this round which has stayed with me, and I really don’t think this one is down to me being a diva (or whatever the masculine form of diva is. Div, probably).

You see, I always finish my school visits with a book signing. Yes, it’s good to earn a little extra income from selling books - most of us aren’t terribly well-off - but that’s not why I do it. Nor is it to soak up a little more adoration - very often it’s when they meet you one-to-one that they say something that brings you back down to earth. No, the book signing is much more important than that.

More than anything else, the reason I do school visits is to promote reading for pleasure. I’m passionate about it. I believe that a school - especially a primary school - that doesn’t at least try to get its pupils reading for pleasure is failing in one of its most important duties. And in my sessions, I do my utmost to link reading and fun.

For me, the signing session is an important way to do that. If a child has been inspired by the day, and is bursting with fresh enthusiasm about reading, it’s good to provide the option of a focus for that enthusiasm; and a book signed by The Author can be just the thing. It can become a treasured, even a totemic, item, invested with significance.

Obviously, not every child will need such a focus - many of them will have books at home that already have particular significance, and for many some all books will be equally special, signed or not. But the signing session means that children are at least offered the option of buying a book which, for some, will be their first Special Book - and, for some, might even be their first book of any sort.

So what’s my niggle? It’s that one of the schools I visited recently refused to allow a signing session. The visit was arranged for me by a librarian, who sent a very apologetic email saying that “the Head was absolutely adamant that she did not want kids from their deprived backgrounds being under any pressure to buy books.”

I’ve got two problems with this. Firstly - and maybe this is me being a bit of a div - I take offence at the suggestion that I might put children under pressure to buy books. While I love it when I sell a lot of books, it’s absolutely fine by me if no-one buys even one, as long as they’ve been given the chance. In fact, sometimes the most special book sales are the ones where nobody turns up, and just as I’m packing up to go home, a child appears, breathless, having run all the way home to get enough money to buy one.

Secondly, and more importantly: books are special. Even my books. Yes, some kids may not be able to afford one, but considering that most parents in the UK, however poor, will buy their children some kind of treat from time to time, surely it’s a positive message to suggest that, this once, that treat might be a book?

Second thoughts on the value of reading in childhood - Clémentine Beauvais

After the let’s-call-it fruitful debate a few months ago on this blog on the value of reading, I was left uneasy. I felt that the question I was truly interested in hadn’t been addressed; instead, the discussion revolved around ‘trash’ and ‘quality’ literature, which wasn’t what I felt to be central to my post.

But I fully understand why. My original post was unnecessarily vociferous and talked about ‘trash’ without definition. I knew very well that it would be a controversial post, but I wrote it too fast and I should have anticipated that this particular aspect would dominate the discussion.

What I was really interested in was the following question: ‘Who benefits most from the notion that any reading is preferable to no reading (or to encounters with other media such as films and video games) in childhood?’

My original blog post failed in part because I was not assertive enough in expressing why there may be an issue with the valorisation of (‘just any’) reading in childhood. I tentatively said things like ‘There are problematic ideological and economic reasons why…’, but didn’t spell them out. I would like to go back to this point because I do think it’s important to have a discussion about it.

Of course, I see reading as essential – and not just because verbal literacy is an important skill. Like all of us on this blog, I do believe that there is something about reading that sets it apart from other types of artistic or fictional encounters, and I love nothing more than seeing children who enjoy reading.

However, I think we have to admit that that somethingis very hard to pin down, and I am unconvinced by the unspoken hierarchy which puts reading ‘above’ film-watching, video-game-playing etc. in the minds of adults who care about and look after children.

(Therefore I completely agree with all the commenters who said that there should be no hierarchy between ‘classic’ novels and comics, for instance. I said this in a comment that got buried somewhere: I am NOT a 'genre' or 'media snob': I do not classify 'low' and 'high' quality literature in terms of genres or media. On the contrary; I think such distinctions can only exist within genres and media. This is between brackets because I don’t wish to get into another conversation about ‘trash’ and ‘quality’, but go ahead if you really want to…)

I’m unconvinced by this hierarchy, but moreover I am worried about who and what it serves. Of course, it uncontroversially serves children. Having motivated and passionate mediators, teachers, librarians, parents who value reading makes children from all backgrounds more likely to encounter books and to enjoy reading.

However, the undebated claim that any reading is good is also highly profitable to the publishing industry as a whole, indiscriminately. And here I'm uncomfortable. As authors, we don’t want to criticise the publishing industry; we want to support it. Publishing is in a state of unprecedented crisis, so we don’t want to make distinctions as to which parts of the industry to support and which parts to criticise, especially on such elusive grounds as ‘quality’.

Furthermore, authors are under pressure (implicit or explicit) not to express negative opinions they may have about the publishing industry. Mid-list authors, especially, can’t afford to talk about requests they get to make books more commercial, more gendered or less political. The problem doesn’t come from individual editors of course; very often they are distraught to be making such requests. They are themselves under pressure from other departments.

Regardless; in the Anglo-Saxon market, children’s publishers profit to a very large extent from the consensus that any readingis better than no reading when it comes to children.  We should talk about this fact much more than we currently do, because it is problematic. The publishing industry has a very strong financial incentive in maintaining this consensus – and currently, I think that we (authors, mediators, teachers, librarians= 'child people') are maintaining it for them, for free.  

When we say that ‘it’s good’ that children are reading, whateverthey may be reading, we are not just supporting ‘reading for pleasure’ (though I accept that we are in part). The sincere desire to be on the side of children is not met by an equally sincere wish on the part of the publishing industry, too many aspects of which are utterly unburdened by such considerations as artistic worth, child development or the value and pleasures of reading. And yes, I know, #NotAllPublishers.

Like several other commenters, I think the dichotomy between ‘reading for pleasure’ and ‘serious’ or ‘quality’ reading is hugely problematic. This dichotomy happens to profit, very conveniently, contemporary children’s publishing in its most undesirable aspects.

By ‘most undesirable aspects’ I mean extreme commercialism, market imperatives superseding or driving editorial work, reliance on formulae and ‘what sells to TV or cinema’, etc. And often, this leads to the production of books which are ideologically problematic (resting on lazy sexist, racist, classist, etc., clichés).

There is always the argument, of course, that those profit-driven aspects of the publishing industry serve to fund the more niche, quality books. This argument may be valid in part, but it’s too neat a defence to convince me fully.

I’m not naïve – I know very well that ‘publishing isn’t a charity’ (that’s something we hear a lot as writers - another mantra we gradually internalise.) I don’t think there is an easy solution to these problems. Other countries do things differently, privileging quality and accepting very niche books, but writers earn much less money than we do here (yes, it’s possible…) and there’s virtually no way of scraping a living out of writing.

I do believe that a quiet way of making a small difference could be to stop condoning the indiscriminate statement that any reading is a good thing (which doesn’t mean ripping books out of children’s hands – just saying this in case someone is tempted to pull the ‘censorship alert’ cord).

A not-so-quiet way is to have this kind of debate, politely but firmly, on a public forum such as this one. 

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Clementine Beauvais writes children's books in both French and English. She blogs here about children's literature and academia and is on Twitter @blueclementine. 

School Library Services – and why we need them – by Emma Barnes

Something rather nice happened a few weeks ago. I hacking away at the coal face, trying to complete the edits for the third book in my Wild Thing series, when the publisher of my previous book, Wolfie, called to tell me that it had just won a prize – a Fantastic Book Award.

Writing is a funny kind of profession. It’s lonely, insecure, there’s no pension, and you never know if the next book will be taken on – but, being so unpredictable, it does produce its golden moments.

It was a real treat, winning the award. I got a certificate, a fountain pen, letters from the child judges. Best of all, I was invited to the presentation ceremony to meet some of the participating children. I heard what they thought about Wolfie, read their reviews, was stunned by their wonderful Wolfie board games and illustrations, signed their books and led a workshop brainstorming magic animal stories. (I’m tempted to steal some of their brilliant ideas!)

Celebrating the award!

I also got to meet the lovely folks at Lancashire School Library Services (Lancs SLS) who  actually run the award.

So, at this point, you’re probably wondering what this all has to do with the title – Emma supports School Library Services because they gave her a nice day out?

No, no, and no. Encouraging authors, nice though it is, is only a side effect of what School Library Services (SLSs) do. First of all, the point of regional book awards, like the Fantastic Book Award (FBA), is not really about the prize. It’s about the process. And that means the children reading, discussing – enjoying – the books. It’s all about bringing books and children together.  And that is what every School Libraries Service aims to do.

My winning book!

To which some might say – why can’t schools do this without a School Library Service? Just consider the following facts:

 - most primary schools don’t have a librarian
 - most primary schools have limited space for a library, and limited stock
- most primary school teachers are not experts in children’s literature, and so primary schools rarely have someone who can choose stock and advise children on which book to read.

 I know these things because I regularly visit primary schools, and have encountered many “libraries” that consist of little more than a handful of Roald Dahls and Dick King Smiths. I do meet teachers and teaching assistant who are passionate about children’s books and reading – but it is through their own personal interest. Wide knowledge of children’s books does not seem to be considered a key part of the job or its training. (I don’t blame hard-pressed teachers – I do blame an education system which has given so little priority to encouraging children’s reading.)

It’s the children that suffer. Here are some of the things that I have witnessed first hand, the result of primary schools without librarians:
  
 - a Year 3 child struggling and failing to read an ancient copy of Thackeray’s The Rose and The Ring from the school library. Nobody was aware that this was not in fact a young child’s read.
-  a boy giving up on a non-fiction book in disgust because its classifications of dinosaurs was decades out of date. 
- a school library that was revamped by parent volunteers, but where there was no library time, and no chance for children to borrow books, because there was no staff member to oversee this. 
- a school which was over 60% non-white, but where none of the books on the shelves had characters of the same ethnicity/religion as these pupils. 

Here, by contrast, are some of the things I’ve seen with a designated school librarian:

 - children’s reading being guided in a good way – e.g. if you like this, then perhaps you’ll like that: if you like The Rainbow Fairies, maybe you’ll like these books by Emily Rodda (also about fairies but more challenging).
- children able to say “I’m interested in Monet/dinosaurs/space/Greek Myths” and immediately being given something age appropriate that reflects their interest.
- regular library times, for quiet reading, but also finding out what library does and how to use it. 
- a wide range of stock which does not rely completely on just a few well established authors, and which reflects all ages, abilities and interests.

 It’s hard for individual schools to tackle these issues alone. The Society of Authors has been campaigning for every school to have a librarian, a campaign I HUGELY support, but the truth is it’s not going to happen any time soon.

Meanwhile School Library Services (SLSs) provide back up. They are the infrastructure on which individual schools can rely.

What does that mean in practice? Well, the first thing I saw when I visited my local SLS in Leeds was a huge warehouse full of books. There were shelves and shelves in all kinds of categories – and all of these books are available to, and regularly sent out by the box load, to the schools that subscribe to the service.

(A bad back must be an occupational hazard in a SLS!)

A school could phone up and say, “we’re doing a project on transport for Year 4” or “we’re struggling to find books for reluctant readers” or “we need books with Muslim characters” and the SLS would help. SLS staff know the stock. They can advise schools on how to access it, how to create a better school library, and how to create a reading culture in schools. They also organize author visits – so that children can meet authors face to face, and teachers can hear about new books too.

They also organize regional book prizes – like the Fantastic Book Award (FBA). For the schools and children involved, the FBA meant a chance to:

- meet in a weekly group to read and chat about the shortlisted books (chosen to reflect a range of abilities and interests)
- read purely for pleasure and to do other fun things, like post reviews online
- spread the word about the books in school
- let teachers know which new books are out there, and which their pupils enjoy
-  engage in activities like drawing the characters in the books, designing board games and eating chocolate muffins at lunch time! All these things help make reading “cool”.
- correspond with authors and meet them in person.

After the event, I was sent feedback from the children. Here’s a couple of quotes:

This morning was brilliant. Especially when we made the story with Emma Barnes, it was fantastic!

I think today was probably the best day in my life because I saw a real life author!

Unfortunately, School Library Services are closing.  Schools have to subscribe to their services – if they don’t subscribe, the service closes. Many parents don’t know what an SLS is or does, so won't protest – which must make them a soft target for cuts. In my own area, Bradford SLS closed in 2012, and  North Yorkshire SLS is to close next year. Who will step into the gap? Public libraries? They may try (I recently did a wonderful schools’ event organized by Oldham Libraries) but public libraries are also subject to deep cuts.

At a time when the value of reading for pleasure is being recognized and acknowledged – the research evidence for its benefits keeps mounting – it's bitterly ironic that the services needed to support it are being reduced.  I just hope that the politicians and public see what's happening before it's too late.

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Emma's new series for 8+ Wild Thing about the naughtiest little sister ever (and her bottom-biting ways) is out now from Scholastic. The second in the series, Wild Thing Gets A Dog is out in July.
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman

 Wolfie is published by Strident.   Sometimes a Girl’s Best Friend is…a Wolf. 
"A real cracker of a book" Armadillo 
"Funny, clever and satisfying...thoroughly recommended" Books for Keeps


Emma's Website
Emma’s Facebook Fanpage
Emma on Twitter - @EmmaBarnesWrite

4 Tricks to Get Kids Reading They Won't Get Taught At School

It's very easy to get depressed these days, as a children's author, simply by reading the news. Library cuts. Michael Gove. Screen time on the rise. Michael Gove. Book sales in decline. Michael Gove. Literacy rates in the UK worse than anywhere else. An unholy obsession with one book by John Steinbeck gripping the nation. Michael Gove.

Every day a new controversy seems to rage across the Twittersphere, with all the nuance, sophistication and depth a conversation conducted in messages arbitrarily composed of 140 characters can have.

So, here is my totally non-controversial guide on how to make reading for pleasure, and reading widely for pleasure, habits as instinctive for the next generation as texting and tweeting now are for us. (I have submitted this to the DofE for their comments but am yet to hear back.)

1) Do not let your child read. This is an early mistake which many parents and educators make. By giving your child books as presents, reading to them or encouraging them to read, you label reading as an adult activity, something that has the same appeal and lure of pension planning or talking about babies.

If you must read, make sure you do it after your children have gone to bed. Lock your books up in a large glass case under lock and key and tell your children that "under no circumstances" are they to try and investigate the contents.

If you ever catch your child reading, explain that you have a 3 strike policy before they are grounded or have pocket money, mobile phone etc withheld.

2) Aggressively promote social media Explain to your child that if they want to have any chance of a future and developing empathic emotional maturity, they must spend as much of their childhood as possible - like you and your parents before you - on social media, Instagramming selfies and sending gossipy tweets to their friends. If they fail to do this on an hourly basis, you will be very disappointed in them and they will learn nothing.

3) Appoint a "designated reader" in your family. You must not be seen to read, your partner mustn't read, and ideally not your friends BUT Uncle Sean or Aunt Liz - "the black sheep of the family " must read till books come out of their ears. Ideally they should own a second hand bookshop which you never visit because you don't approve and on your child's 18th birthday, this ostracized relative can illicitly take your progeny out to a bookish lunch at the British Library Cafe - about which you express deep and constant reservations for months afterwards.

4) Make reading in public illegal The more reading is confined to bus shelters late at night, the back row of the bus, or nightclub toilets, the more it is likely to catch on. Celebrities could be photographed on zoom lenses reading paperbacks on the loo, and stock buying in countries where reading is still legal.

Or, alternatively and what feels actually more controversial in our current upside down discourse: at home, at school and in the library, begin by giving every child the time, space and liberty to independently discover the joy of being lost in a book by themselves.

Piers Torday

@Piers Torday

www.pierstorday.co.uk

Why I'm Happy to Support Age-Banding of Children's Books by Emma Barnes

I’m a bit reluctant to raise this issue, because I know even a mention of it can cause fellow authors to start foaming at the mouth, talking about the end of civilization as we know it. For some reason, this is an issue that authors feel very strongly about. So here goes (whisper it)… I support the age-banding of children’s books. And many authors don’t.

 My new book actually has an age recommendation on the cover. See? My publishers were tentative when they first suggested it. They are obviously well aware of the sensitivities around this issue. But I said…go ahead.  It's actually very subtle.

For those not familiar with this topic, it kicked off a few years back, when publishers found, having surveyed their customers, that most would welcome some guidance on the covers of children’s books. There are, after all, a vast amount of titles in print. It’s not always clear from a cursory glance how “kiddish” a Wimpy Kid may be, how “little” a Little Woman or how “wild” a Wild Thing (in case you’d like to know, she’s a wild five year old, but her adventures are narrated by her older sister, and my publisher expects her adventures to appeal to 8 plus.)

Often the same author and illustrator produce books that look similar but are actually for different age-groups. These books by Jacqueline Wilson are for different age groups, but can you tell the difference?

When publishers first suggested that it might be a good idea to put a discreet piece of age guidance on back covers (very discreet indeed) a tirade of author anger was let forth. A campaign was started. Prestigious authors protested. You can see their statement of opposition here and author Philip Pullman’s particularly resounding condemnation here.

I will say straight off that I’m absolutely in agreement with all those authors and librarians who have a desire to see children have as much access to books as possible. It’s something I feel passionately about (as any friend who has heard me rant on about this subject will attest.) I so much want children to find books they enjoy. I despair when I hear about another library closure…visit a school with shelves virtually devoid of books…or read studies like this, with its grim findings about the negative attitudes of children to books. (My heart lifts when I meet those inspiring teachers and librarians that are doing wonderful work to bring books and children together.) I desperately want children to have access to books, and to find the books that appeal to them – and I think it’s a massive tragedy that so many don’t.

If I could have three wishes, one would be for every primary school to have a librarian – somebody well read in children’s books, able to maintain a well-stocked library, to keep up with new releases and to guide children to the books likely to interest them. The Society of Authors is campaigning for exactly that, and I think it would have a massive, positive impact on children’s reading – and their wider well being.

What I don’t understand is why an age recommendation on a book is somehow seen as being contrary to these ideals.

The trouble I think is in some people’s minds, age guidance of any kind seems to mean only one thing: censorship. Now censorship can be an issue in children’s books: every year, for example, the list is published of most banned books from US libraries. Then there is the more implicit kind of censorship – the worry that publishers might perhaps feel that a gay character will prove less popular than a straight character in YA fiction, or should be of a certain race to maximize sales. But neither of these issues have anything to do with age-banding. And especially not here in the UK, where I’ve seen little evidence that (the sadly increasingly few) children’s librarians out there are interested in limiting children’s access to books in any way. As for parents, I’d argue that they are more concerned about what kids see on the screen, than what they might find between the pages of a book.

Having an age guidance figure on a book does not mean a child can’t or shouldn’t read it. It’s not a legal limit. It’s guidance. Guidance. That’s all. Last time the issue hit the news, I remember reading an article where the journalist explained he’d been reading Balzac at age nine. (Or was it Voltaire at eight? I can’t remember.) Nobody is setting out to rein in Balzac-reading nine year olds. I’m not especially worried how many swear words adolescents read either. (Though some are – see the recent debates following this article about a new YA novel, which sparked off the age-banding debate again.) What I do care about is that more books should reach more children – and I think that some kind of well-meaning indicators for the adults choosing books (it is mostly adults who buy children’s books) helps that goal.

One thing we do know for sure is that many parents almost never buy books for their children. Surveys show that almost one in three children in the UK did not own a single book.  Research in the UK and USA has also shown that book ownership is strongly correlated with children’s enjoyment of, and ability in, reading. Children who owned more books were significantly more likely to have positive attitudes to reading. And there is now strong evidence that children who read for pleasure do significantly better educationally in all areas than those who don’t – even in mathematics - see here.  Have a look at this overview to see the many important benefits reading for pleasure brings.

For me, all of the above is strong evidence that we should do whatever we can to help parents in getting books to their children. As a parent buying books, I know I’m regularly confused about who a book is aimed at. I inspect the cover…the blurb…I flick through. And some of the time, I’m still confused. But the cover and blurb are “rich in clues” the anti-age banding lobby tells me. Well, guess what. I can’t always read the clues. And if I can’t read them – and I’m a children’s writer – then why should any other parent be able to either? And do you know what happens when parents can’t tell? They buy a copy of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, because they can remember exactly what it was like and who it was for, or they buy a copy of Roald Dahl for the same reason. Now, I’ve got nothing against either author. Or the tables and tables of rereleased classics – Stig of the Dump, Tom’s Midnight Garden – that seem to be mushrooming in my local Waterstones. But I think it is a shame if it means that children are less likely to discover contemporary authors, the ones that are writing specifically for them, about their lives, right now.

It’s even more of a shame - more of a mini-tragedy - if that parent (or aunty, granddad, friend) gives up on the idea of buying a book for fear of getting it wrong and decides it would be much easier to buy something else instead.

Not everybody is familiar with the language of book covers. Not everyone has even heard of Roald Dahl, Horrid Henry or Winnie-the-Pooh. It’s true. The most striking example I can think of is the woman I know who gave a ten year old an explicitly erotic bodyripper as a present. She gave it in genuine good faith, and would have been mortified to know of its content. But she didn’t read the clues. (In fact she had worked out it was historical, and she knew this particular child liked history. It wasn’t that she couldn’t be bothered trying to find the right book.) She was a member of an immigrant community, and English was not her first language. There are many parents in this category. There are also people who are unfamiliar with libraries and bookstores, or who struggle to read themselves. Many still want to buy books for their children. They may not, however, have easy access to advice, or be able to easily afford to write off the price of a book if they “get it wrong”.

I can’t help feeling there’s a kind of intellectual snobbery in the idea that everyone should be able to deduce the nature of a children’s books – (or even, as sometimes helpfully suggested, that they should read the book first themselves. Maybe a parent of a book hungry child doesn’t have the time? Maybe they don’t have the ability? A voracious reader will be reading far more at eight, nine or ten years old than even the most interested adult will have time to keep up with.) I also find it rather ironic that children’s authors – generally a liberal and leftward-leaning lot – have been so keen to embrace a line which I feel can make it harder for many to enter and explore the world of children’s literature.

So why else are people opposed? These seem to be the main arguments:

Slower readers will feel embarrassed about reading books with younger age-ranges on the cover 

I put this one first, because it may be true and certainly does concern me. But I’d be interested to see the evidence that age ranges on covers puts off readers – or that kids even notice them. (They are pretty discreet – look at the photo.) When I asked high school librarians recently about the accelerated reader scheme – which assigns a “level” to books, and then encourages children to progress through the levels – they denied that having “levels” humiliated or embarrassed less able readers. On the contrary, they claimed that the scheme appealed most to exactly those kids (less able boys) that form the much worried about “reluctant reader” category.

You can’t choose an age-range – every child is different.

They are. And they may develop at different rates. But it’s surely daft to say that because individual children vary, age is irrelevant. A child will most likely enjoy The Gruffalo before they start reading Horrid Henry before they read Harry Potter… Even if there is no explicit age band given, there is still an audience in mind.

Expert librarians and booksellers can guide children to the right books.

Sadly, both are becoming almost as rare as hen’s teeth. (And likely to remain so unless the political and economic climate changes.) Libraries and bookshops are closing at an alarming rate.

So can teachers. 

Another lovely thought, but until children’s literature is a much more prominent part of teacher training, and every primary school has a designated school librarian (and well-stocked library) most children will not get this kind of expert guidance. Primary teachers are generalists, not book specialists, and have 30 plus children in their class. 

Bookshops already categorise by age.

Yes. So why shouldn’t publishers help them? After all publishers and authors know the books best. And what about those buyers (likely to have the lowest incomes) who can only access charity shops or supermarkets?

Good books are for everyone. Age is irrelevant. 

Yes – and no. Sorry. Yes, I might enjoy curling up with Alice or Winnie-the-Pooh or Jennings or The Church Mouse or The Ogre Downstairs or a zillion other favourite children’s books, but the art of writing for children, I’d argue, is that the writer is able to craft something that appeals (in language, theme or content) primarily to a child at a particular stage of development, with a particular level of experience. The very few genuine crossovers (Harry Potter perhaps) remain the exception, not the rule. I love reading children’s books, but I read them on those terms – I feel privileged to return to a child’s view when I read them, and I don’t expect to find an adult perspective or theme suddenly appear. (Some children’s books, especially picture books, may include jokes for their adult readers. That’s great. But they mustn’t lose sight of their child reader. And even the most universal of material – say, Greek mythology – will be presented in different ways appropriate for different age-groups.)

In conclusion, I’m glad that my book has an age-band on it. I hope it won’t put off those six or seven year olds who might enjoy it, or much older readers too. I don’t believe that it will. And if it helps those people, parents in particular, that I’ve met at schools and signings, and whose first question is always: “What age is it for?” then I’ll be more than happy.

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Emma's new book, Wild Thing,  about the naughtiest little sister ever, is out now from Scholastic. It is the first of a series for readers 8+.

 Wolfie is published by Strident.   Sometimes a Girl’s Best Friend is…a Wolf. 
"A real cracker of a book" Armadillo 
"Funny, clever and satisfying...thoroughly recommended" Books for Keeps - Book of the Week 
"This delightful story is an ideal mix of love and loyalty, stirred together with a little magic and fantasy" Carousel 

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