After reading 62 pages of Winnie-the-Pooh, I was beginning to feel sleepy myself when my seven-year-old grandson finally agreed to snuggle down and close his eyes. He knows this classic novel off by heart, and he recited snippets of A. A. Milne’s timeless narrative along with me: “I’ve just been thinking, and I have come to a very important decision. These are the wrong sort of bees.”
A bedtime story is a nightly ritual, without which he won’t consider signing off (me neither). After this marathon session, he burrowed beneath the duvet but turned on his Yoto, the reader’s voice - relating Winnie-the-Pooh far better than I ever could - eventually lulling him to sleep. It’s not that he can’t read for himself; this past year he has come on fast. But that isn’t the point. At his age, the joy is not just in the story but the companionship and affirmation of reading together.
I remember the thrill of my mother reading The Hobbit to me when I was eight. The story was captivating, but so was her attention, as we sat squeezed in an armchair by the fireside, wondering if Bilbo could rescue the trussed-up dwarves from the spiders’ lair. The image of a contented child being read to encapsulates the ideal of a nurturing home environment. It’s a special, calm corner of the day, when all other distractions are shut out and the child enjoys your full focus. Yet reality falls far short of the ideal.
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Figures compiled by HarperCollins show that in the last 12 months the number of five to seven-year-olds who rarely or never read has leapt from 8% to 11%, and only 25% of five to 17-year-olds read for pleasure compared with 39% in 2012. These dispiriting figures, and the fact that one in 10 children in Glasgow do not possess a single book, might explain the publisher’s recent philanthropic initiative.
As part of the National Year of Reading, and in tandem with the Children’s Book Project charity, HarperCollins is giving away 20,000 new and little-used books to 20 Glasgow schools. It’s a bonanza for schools and pupils, and a statement of HarperCollins’ commitment to the future of their trade. After all, a child who is hooked on reading will hopefully grow into an adult who haunts the library or bookshop and keeps authors, publishers, and printers in a job.
Any project aimed at helping children grow into readers is admirable. Despite our wealth of internationally acclaimed novelists, poets and writers, both past and present, Scotland’s adult literacy levels are nothing to boast about, with around 26% admitting to occasional literacy problems. Even though that leaves almost 75% who are strong readers, less than a third of youngsters between the ages of eight and 18 pick up a book for pleasure. This, despite the literacy attainment rates, last year, among primary and secondary S3 students (74.5% and 89.8%).
What this suggests is not that almost a quarter of us don’t read very well, but that for those who can, books are low on their list of priorities. Most people are perfectly capable of reading in their own time; they simply choose not to. Everywhere you look there are signs that serious reading is a minority interest. Count passengers with hardbacks, paperbacks or kindles on a train or bus, compared to those glued to their screens. Take any TV property show or estate agent’s website, and there’s rarely a book in sight – nor is there space for bookcases!
It’s not a question of decluttering; it’s a palpable absence and void, a cultural sinkhole. Which is why I don’t think giving books to children is the answer. Now of course, thanks to benefactors like HarperCollins, school libraries in Glasgow will soon be better stocked, offering a wider choice of tempting titles for students. For kids from disadvantaged homes this could be game-changing, and we can hope that a few will become lifelong bookworms as a result. But for how many – whatever their background – will that be true if there are no books at home? Will they persist when the family interest in reading for fun is zero?
Poverty certainly explains why some kids find reading difficult, throughout school and into adulthood. But for those with a bit of spare cash, a trip to the library or to a charity shop, where children’s titles cost much less than a coffee, is an easy way of bringing books into their lives. For most people there’s simply no excuse for not having piles of them lying around for their kids.
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Educators are emphatic about the importance of parents and relatives encouraging youngsters to enjoy reading. Yet if a child is raised in a home where nobody else reads, how likely are they to swim against the tide? They aren’t stupid. If a parent tells them a bedtime story every night but never picks up a book for themselves, they’ll naturally assume that reading doesn’t matter. Whereas if they see mum or dad or their grandparents nose-deep in a good tale, they will grow up knowing that reading is an enjoyable part of everyday life, and something to aspire to.
For the vast majority of households with few or no books, the explanation is not lack of money but lack of interest. So rather than focus on children, shouldn’t we be promoting reading as a worthwhile and life-changing pastime among non-reading parents? Surely it’s possible to entice them into enjoying a novel or a gripping history, and ignite an interest in something they’ve lost touch with or never considered? Give them titles that will catch their attention, and they might become influencers for their offspring, showing them that reading isn’t a school chore, but one of life’s greatest boons.
The place to start would be protecting our public libraries, thereby embedding the importance of reading as a core part of society. Rather than constantly closing libraries, whittling their opening hours, or reducing their stock and laying off professional librarians – all symptoms of a wider cultural malaise that does not value literature – they should be heavily invested in as the gateway to pleasure and success. If you can get that message through to adults, while also helping them discover the joy of reading for themselves, then it won’t be long before youngsters will be copying them in this, as in everything else.
Rosemary Goring is a columnist and author. Her most recent book is Homecoming: The Scottish Years of Mary, Queen of Scots
