The piece is a society-wide call to arms, but I'm wondering now what levers I possess, and the levers publishing can pull. How can we help parents enjoy reading to their kids? (Given all the pressures on them that government needs to fix eg providing secure, well-paid employment w reasonable hours)
I was thinking recently how segregated by age culture is these days. In the 80's you had the like of Hi-de-hi and Allo Allo which everyone watched because you didn't have the choice. Creating for a wide age range is hard so it just doesn't happen as much.
A category of family books, I'm sure, would increase reading to your kids.
Although I'm the last person to ask about this as the boy has always preferred reading things himself. He doesn't process things auditorily (?!) very well.
True! I think in tv they at least try to create family shows, but the idea of an "all ages" book isn't really a thing - except in indie comics, where it's quite common.
My Reception-age daughter loves reading bedtime stories, and 'reading' books to us when she knows the words by heart, but getting her to do her homework reading books is SUCH a struggle. Feels like a disservice to her when I'm updating her homework diary to say she's not read much that week.
I still read to my 13yo (we’re going through ALL of Jeeves right now). Part of it I think is not letting the kid think that you reading to them is a chore. Me and my wife frame it as who “gets to” read to the kids each night.
Still thinking about this when I picked up the Belfast Book Festival guide. Nothing for the 10-14 age range. Maybe I'm just bitter because I've asked every year for three years for them to approach you and Neill for it. 😉
We could also do with cloning you. We need more writers like you who think about the bigger picture. You think about what kids want, not just about what will sell.
My son had a lesson every week in year 7 where the teacher read a book to them for the whole hour. He does not read for pleasure at all but loved this. It fills me with joy. Being read to doesn’t finish in primary school.
One thing publishing doesn't do much of is talk to children (beyond their own kids, who are never going to be typical given the access to books they have). As authors, we DO speak to a lot of kids, but I wonder if we always listen and absorb what excites kids about books? (Some do I'm sure!)
This! They’re sometimes surprised if we tell them what we see kids getting excited about and you’re like… but… this is our industry?! This is who we create for even if they’re not the gatekeepers. We should be all about understanding kids.
the curriculum is a huge problem. My dad was a primary school teacher, & used to read whole books (Dahl etc) to his classes, a couple of chapters a day, just for fun. Now schools might ‘study’ a book like Peter Pan but end up looking for fronted adverbials in passages and don’t even finish them
Yeah we teach grammar first when we really should teach it last. It doesn't just get in the way of reading for fun, it creates anxiety in young readers because they think reading and writing is about 'getting it right' not 'communicating ideas'
It's much easier to take a kid who wants to write because it lets them express themselves and then show them how grammar works in service of that expression, than it is to teach grammar rules to kids who've never been taught literacy as empowerment.
I genuinely didn't learn grammar until I did foreign languages at secondary school. Well nothing beyond "noun adjective verb". It feels like we could relax kids into this a lot more! (I always come back to scandi countries where school starts at seven or so and before that, play)
We had this at Primary school. We'd discuss the chapter afterwards but more about what had happened and how we felt. It was great! Like Eastenders but at school! Goodnight Mr Tom really stuck with me and had us all in tears, but no one complained because tears were the right response.
Sometimes stories make you cry. Sometimes you laugh. Sometimes you think. Our headmaster used to read chapters from a book about a kids football team that all had morals in. But we also watched TV series in the same way (remember the 'educational' series). Books and telly and music were equal.
Seeing talking about books like talking about last night's telly is such a useful way to think about it - we're not hacking it to death with analysis, we're exploring how it made us feel, exploring the experience!
I had a teacher like that - who read us Roald Dahl or Little House on the Prairie whilst we rested our heads on the desk after lunch. That was my happiest year at school. After that it was all 11+ grinds and exam prep.
My kids’ primary school is great otherwise but they never seem to finish a book they do in class. They don’t learn that impulse to turn the page; to desperately need to know what happens next!
We never used to finish anything in primary school cos they'd make us all read aloud and we'd get through a couple of pages a day (this would be 2000-2007). I used to read ahead under the table, with the result that I read Goodnight Mister Tom about twenty times, but the class never finished it 🤦
My kid in y5 doesn’t get to finish books they read as class. She’s a very confident reader, but literally just this morning said that it had taken her so long to read her library book because it doesn’t count as it’s not on their Accelerated Reader system. 1/2
She wants to read for pleasure, and does. But it takes her longer as she feels like she needs to direct her efforts to books that are on the scheme.
This from a kid who loves reading.
And we haven’t even got to SATs prep/set texts yet.
Also why are they still studying Dahl & Peter Pan? Without at the very least discussing how problematic they are?!
Kiddo came home saying they're reading Dahl and then mentioned their 'quirks' and I immediately knew whatever came next was going to be ableist. And it was.
Time to ditch the 'classics'
One in four children in the UK finish primary school and are unable to read at the expected level - a clear example of policy failure. Why do we accept this?Ps. my son laughed all the way through Loki.
And that was the thing, for us. Kiddo *hated* the books school gave them to learn to read. Biff, Chip and Kipper can get in the sea. The second I took them to the library and let them choose, that's when they got into reading.
I don't have any answers here, but giving kids choice is key
The one that set us laughing was a use of "ox" in reading scheme text rather than "cow" (hard word innit). Farming family Gran said "Do you think they know what an ox actually is?"
God yes. I still remember how dull they were even now. I got told I could read proper books once I finished them so I read all of them very, very quickly so I could be left alone to read something with a plot!
😆 pretty sure I did the same thing
"You can't move onto the next level, you're too young
*Furiously reads every book on my level until there's none left*
"Fine!"
One of the dads I interviewed for my ADHD book had a brilliant thing for this. He found baby/toddler books unutterably boring, so read to his daughter from adult books in an engaging tone (like 3 Men and a Little Baby!). His interest went on to make HER interested, and then they read together.
One thing is to look at how reading to kids is being pushed to parents. It’s well-meant, but to a frazzled, overworked parent the language used can make it seem like yet *another* thing you’re supposed to do.
It should be fun, first and foremost, not ‘you’re letting your kids down if you don’t’.
I think there's a confidence element to people who are dyslexic but spent their life being told that they're thick. I know my friend never read to her kids because she was afraid she'd get it wrong (she did make up stories for them and drew along to them - kids still got stories!). 1/3
So maybe giving people permission to just listen to audio books together in an evening - maybe those old-school ones where it pings to tell you to turn the page if you're not a confident reader of more complex books/English isn't your first language. So maybe pubs. could offer a physical/e-copy 2/3
with any audio-books they sell so that everyone in the family could enjoy, and kids can still follow the words being read? Hopefully that makes sense - its been a bit of a morning so my brain isn't firing on all cylinders. Yes, I know it's only 10am. 3/3
I know the "bundling" thing has been looked at before and dismissed but I wonder, if a cheaper/less nice paper "reading" copy to go with an audiobook could work...
One that comes to mind is the complete Sherlock Holmes collection read by Stephen Fry—it would be good to read along with a print collection, and most stories are pretty short.
were/could family-friendly radio plays ever be a thing?
I realise timing/scheduling would be hard, but a possibly shared experience at home, then talking with schoolfriends the next day, feels fun — and more inclusive, community building
It's starting to feel like a vicious circle as well. Kids who don't read become parents who don't read, and their kids don't get encouraged to read, and on it goes.
Yeah. And, I realise this is not a problem that can be solved by a small group of people (publishers and authors) but those are the people I'm part of so...
An additional idea might be to somehow reach out to grandparents, who are often helping out with childcare & might have more time to sit down and read with their grandchildren? Making them aware of the vast wealth of new book formats & life reading habits they could encourage 😊 #KidLitUk
We still read together most nights. (Looking forward to the next Loki btw).
And the less said the better about the teacher who wrote off One Piece as a “comic” when giving a detention for reading in class (OK he should have been doing schoolwork)
Oh I have so many thoughts on this, as a reader and as a working parent whose husband also works, I agree it's a societal issue, we're increasingly putting importance in the wrong things. We're time starved, and devices have taken over our time, whether we admit it or not.
Kids tend to mimic/model behaviour they see so if the other kids and grown ups in their lives aren't reading, then they are less likely to - don't come at me people - I'm just saying what I've expereinced!
There's a cartoon of two parents each with their child waiting at a bus stop and one parent is reading and so is their child and the other one (who is looking at their phone) asks how first parent gets their child to read..
And there's the still rampant reading snobbery. So many adults consider picture books, fact books, graphic novels, manga, comics, audiobooks as 'not real books, not proper reading'. That has a massive, negative impact
I've been in bookshops & heard parents actually saying these words to their kids ☹️
oh god I've heard that too and it takes every fibre of my being not to stage an intervention that would probably get me arrested...so so frustratinggggg
Saaaame, my heart broke for the young girl in Blackwells who desperately wanted a new Hilda graphic novel but whose Dad told her to 'choose a proper book'. I nearly chased her and offered to buy it for her but I chickened out!
Agree that our beautiful libraries are not getting adequate funding and book costs are increasing. I'd love to have seen the research include the Book Trust who work so hard to get kids reading and run an annual Christmas campaign to give kids in care/poverty their own books.
Louie, you asked what authors and the industry could do. You & so many authors work tirelessly doing talks, signings & events. I'd assume most of the parents there make time for reading. Continuing the conversation that 'other' types of books are also reading too, perhaps with a list of your faves?
As for the industry, they need to come and talk to us parents, and our kids. It's as simple as that. I'm lucky that my boys (15 & 11) love reading, but so do their parents 😜 We read to them a lot (and still do) and always encouraged them to read all sorts of stuff & get audiobooks for long journeys.
I mean, all adults know the reading lull that hits after spending time "studying books" - there's so much discourse about getting back to loving reading - so why are we turning this into the entire lives of little kids? So that they never love reading in the first place?
The situation is a bit different in Ireland. At age 10 around 90% of Irish children read for fun according to the Growing up in Ireland national survey. But that drops off steeply in the teen years.
It’s great we are all talking about it - a good start!
This is why I get so cross when grown adults are condescending towards popular YA books. My daughter and all her friends are obsessed with the Powerless series and it's so glorious. Some reviewers have been harsh, but the girls LOVE LOVE LOVE it and that's just such a delight to me.
I can't remember who I was discussing this with but the point came up that "reading for pleasure" in itself feels like an odd phrase....reading for fun is better! You don't "watch tv for pleasure". It sounds so dry and abstract somehow.
That's such a good point. "Reading for pleasure" sounds like we're lab rats being observed by human scientists. "Ah, look here Doctor Egan! The subject is engaged in reading for non-functional purposes. It must be intended for 'pleasure'. I shall note it in the data set."
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Although I'm the last person to ask about this as the boy has always preferred reading things himself. He doesn't process things auditorily (?!) very well.
The books they were assigned were all great, but... INDISPUTABLE BUMMERS.
1/
This from a kid who loves reading.
And we haven’t even got to SATs prep/set texts yet.
Kiddo came home saying they're reading Dahl and then mentioned their 'quirks' and I immediately knew whatever came next was going to be ableist. And it was.
Time to ditch the 'classics'
I don't have any answers here, but giving kids choice is key
"You can't move onto the next level, you're too young
*Furiously reads every book on my level until there's none left*
"Fine!"
It should be fun, first and foremost, not ‘you’re letting your kids down if you don’t’.
(reading or circle time in preschools I've worked in have tended to frame it more like that)
I think it's being seen as homework, or a chore — which also takes the fun out of imagining together
I realise timing/scheduling would be hard, but a possibly shared experience at home, then talking with schoolfriends the next day, feels fun — and more inclusive, community building
Funding not finding for libraries
Lowest point was when he lent Frostheart to a friend at school. He’d taken half a term to read it. It came back read in a week.
We still read together most nights. (Looking forward to the next Loki btw).
And the less said the better about the teacher who wrote off One Piece as a “comic” when giving a detention for reading in class (OK he should have been doing schoolwork)
I've been in bookshops & heard parents actually saying these words to their kids ☹️
It’s great we are all talking about it - a good start!
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?