On Why Children's Books Matter
In recent months and weeks where the news has been dominated with headlines about the UK election, our hearts and minds here at Kibworth Books have been uplifted and buoyed by many things – our customers (always, of course), but also by visits from some fabulous Children’s authors during Independent Bookshop Week, and the appointment of the new Children’s Laureate. Both of these things have given us great food for thought as a bookshop team about the value and importance of children’s books and fired up our (already quite fiery) passion for them. Kirsty, our Children’s Specialist Bookseller, reflects on this below…
Do children’s books matter? Should we be spending more time reading them, other than to the children in our lives?
Now, obviously, given I’m a children’s bookseller, you can probably predict my answer to these questions with some confidence: Yes. And a big, giant, emphatic yes. And I’d hazard a guess that most grown-ups would probably be in agreement with me too. At least, with the first question. Because how many of us grown-ups – and be really honest here – think that children’s books matter and are important for children, but perhaps not so much for any of us over the age of 16. Children need books to learn to read, to widen their understanding of the world, and to find pleasure and escape in the joy of a story – of course they do. But once we are – to steal a phrase from the great Children’s author, Katherine Rundell, ‘so old and wise’ (more on her later), us grown-ups can move on to the great literature found on the grown-up bookshelves. We’ll find everything we need there, right?
You can probably predict my answer to this question too. No. Children’s books absolutely do matter and we absolutely should be reading them, and not just as bedtime stories with the kids. Us grown-ups need to be reading children’s books too and, what’s more, children need us to start reading them more too.
Recent research carried out by the National Literacy Trust has shown a steady decline in rates of reading for pleasure in children. This is backed up by further research carried out by World Book Day in partnership with Beano Brain. Fewer children are reading and with less frequency, a situation not helped of course by the chronic underfunding of schools who often struggle to afford quality classroom and library book stock, and by the lack of statutory requirement in the UK for schools to have a library. And when they are reading, as the World Book Day research findings show, 1 in 5 kids feel judged for what they read, while a quarter are made to read things they don’t want to.
As the National Literacy Trust writes, “Declining reading enjoyment across a growing number of children and young people must act as a wake-up call for all who support children and young people’s reading for pleasure and the many benefits it can bring.”
Echoing the cry for a wake-up call is the brilliant and highly acclaimed author Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Having just been appointed to the prestigious position of Children’s Laureate – being handed the baton by the equally wonderful author and poet Joseph Coelho – he gave a stirring speech on the importance of children’s books, the reading lives of children, and what we – the grown-ups – need to be doing to support children better.
He states, “Our children are living through the aftermath of a series of crises, the pandemic, a series of wars and an unfolding environmental crisis. The only public conversation is about how we can make our children “catch up” - which seems to me a kind of code for forgetting this ever happened. None of us has the slightest idea about what the future now holds for them – but the one thing we do know is that they will need to know how to be happy. Every child has to have the opportunity to begin to build the apparatus of happiness within themselves. I will use my time as Children’s Laureate to call for a reset in our attitude towards how we value children’s books and reading – to start this story again – and to campaign for the millions of children living in poverty to be given the same life-changing chances. To stand up for the children in this country and their Reading Rights.”
It's stirring stuff, right? And I’d encourage you to read more fully about Frank’s appointment here. But what I – as a bookseller, as a parent, as a grown-up - take from this inspiring speech is that the responsibility for reversing this downward spiral in children’s levels of reading for pleasure lays with all of us. It absolutely requires action at governmental level and in schools and educational providers across the country, but it requires action at an individual level too. And what might that action look like? It might look as simple as picking up a children’s book and deciding to read this on holiday this summer rather than some literature for grown-ups.
But why would this action be helpful? And, what’s more, why should anyone put aside their usual reading and opt for a kids book instead? We asked two Children’s authors for their thoughts – A.M Dassu and Bali Rai – both of who visited us during Independent Bookshop Week for a spot of guest bookselling. Here’s what they had to say…
“Children learn from us. They learn from watching us reading, and also they learn from books. It’s where they gain their empathy and their understanding of the world around them which makes these stories incredibly powerful. So it’s important for adults to be reading those children’s books too to understand how the stories they contain are creating a whole new generation of readers and to get an insight into what they are learning through their choice of books.” (Bali Rai).
In short, we are the model for children’s reading habits. It is simply not enough to provide them with books, we need to be reading them ourselves too and learning alongside them. The aforementioned World Book Day research highlights a startling disconnect between adult's messaging to children about the importance of reading, and the reading habits they model themselves at home. Over 28% of respondents to the Beano Brain survey agreed that being able to talk to parents about the books they are reading would help them, but less than 25% reported witnessing their parents reading at home themselves. (Interestingly, 56% of children reported that 'scrolling on their phone' was how they witnessed their parents relaxing at home. Unsuprising perhaps, but not the greatest advert for 'reading for pleasure'.).
We asked award winning author AM Dassu how we might convince more grown-ups to read children's books. What's in it for them? She told us,
“A child’s point of view is so innocent and open to ideas – they’ve not yet closed themselves off to other viewpoints - and so there is so much scope to grow as an adult from reading children’s books. Recently I’ve been reading historical fiction which covers our shared history, for example, titles about the suffragettes, but children’s books will often explore this through new and different perspectives such as the experience of Sikh suffragettes. But I’m learning about this, not from adult books but through children’s books! What’s more, books for children are just so engaging. They’re often quite cinematic in their writing and you’re just instantly engrossed. They’re just so exciting to read!” (AM Dassu)
I have lost count of the times that I have read a children’s book and had my mind blown by the sheer power they hold. Yes, they are exciting, engaging, often funny, but they are often incredibly moving too. I have sobbed over the pages of writers such as Catherine Bruton, Katya Balen and S.A Juckes, have had my prejudices and misconceptions challenged by writers such as AM Dassu and Onjali Q Rauf and have guffawed with laughter at Emily Jane Clark, Andy Stanton and Alex Latimer. I’ve also learned the most weird and wonderful facts from children’s books too, and escaped to the most wonderful alternative universes. In short, children’s books are an absolute wonder and are heaps of fun. As Bali Rai argues, “Most adults, if they are honest with themselves, find life stressful. And if they could just rediscover that sense of childhood wonder and amazement and silliness, well, they’d had a much happier and stress free life!”
But if you’re still not convinced, perhaps the award-winning children’s author Katharine Rundell might just swing it for you. In her 2019 title Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise she writes,
“Children’s novels...spoke and still speak of hope. They say: look, this is what bravery looks like. This is what generosity looks like. They tell me, through the medium of wizards and lions and talking spiders, that this world we live in is a world of people who tell jokes and work and endure. Children’s books say: the world is huge. They say: hope counts for something. They say: bravery will matter, wit will matter, empathy will matter, love will matter. These things may or may not be true. I do not know. I hope they are.”
Hope is, I think, something we could all use a lot of right now. Hope for the world, hope for a generation of children who read widely, frequently and with great pleasure, and hope that Cottrell Boyce’s campaign for a brighter future through books will prove revolutionary in its impact. My hope is that you’ll visit the children’s room here at the bookshop this summer, that you’ll browse the children’s shelves and talk to us about the books upon them, and that you’ll go home with a book you might not otherwise have chosen for yourself. And I don’t hope that you’ll love it; I know you will.
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If you’d like to chat Children’s books with us or need any recommendations on where to get started, having lost your way in all the grown-up books, pop by the shop or drop us a line on info@kibworthbooks.com
And if you’d like to have a read of Katharine Rundell’s book, Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, you can find this here: Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So – Kibworth Books
Links to further reading:
National Literacy Trust - Annual Literacy Survey report
World Book Day / Beano Brain research
Book Trust - Announcement of Frank Cottrell-Boyce as the new Children's Laureate
Empathy Lab Research - Does Reading Fiction Make us Better People?