Age-old 'crisis' as children turn their backs on reading

Author CATE CAIN says writers need to compete with the 'zapper' age to get youngsters page-turning again

age, child, children, reading, parents, youngsters, mother, fathers, books, libraryTo enjoy a good story requires peace and quiet[Getty]

Me (aged nine): "I don't want to read it."

Father: "When I read it at your age I thought it was exciting." Me: "Well, it's not - it's just old and boring. I'm going to watch telly."

KIDS TODAY, eh? All they want to do is sit in front of a screen. Actually the above exchange is my father trying to persuade me to read Swallows And Amazons. Considering I am writing this 41 years later, I think it is fair to say that concerns about the decline in children's literacy are nothing new.

I suspect my father was trying to wean me off Enid Blyton and interest me in more "challenging" matter but he had done what we all do; harked back to his childhood. The result was he was hugely disappointed that I wasn't on board with Roger, Nancy and Titty (oh, innocent days!). He didn't realise that I too was looking for something a bit more "challenging".

To be fair, my father was blithely unaware that when my brother and I came home from school we plonked ourselves in front of the TV where such programmes as The Tomorrow People, Children Of The Stones, Tarot and Ace Of Wands provided us with weirdly psychedelic, utterly compelling entertainment.

Discovering a love of reading is like finding the key to a personal treasure house.

Children of the late 1960s and 1970s were the first to have stories pumped into their heads on a daily basis via the TV. It did not stop us reading but I am sure it changed what and how we read.

I think the same is happening now. Despite my father's suspicions I was a confident reader at nine. Rejecting Arthur Ransome's oeuvre I was delighted to find that the dark fantasy worlds of authors Susan Cooper, Joan Aitken, Alan Garner and Katherine Storr were just like the things I was watching on TV, only better because they were often more scary and I could stay up all night reading with a torch under the bedcovers.

Yes! I really was that child and there were many like me. Now we are grown-ups and, like my father, we cannot understand why it is all going wrong.

But is it? There is much debate about the difficulty of getting children, particularly boys, hooked on reading between the crucial ages of nine and 13, when lifelong literacy is established, but I disagree with those who say children no longer want to read. I think, like me back in 1970s Watford, they read differently, and that is the challenge.

We only have to look around to understand why the simple, contemplative, intimate world of reading is becoming increasingly alien to children more familiar with a TV zapper than a bookmark.

To truly immerse yourself in a book you need peace, space and head time. These are often in short supply. In 2014 children spend even longer than I did in front of a screen where the choice of programmes, channels, films and games at their command is limitless.

I use the word "command" deliberately. Like miniature Roman emperors, generation Z (for zapper) has the power to give the remote the thumbs down if something fails to please. Add the toxic sludge of social media and the competition for attention is overwhelming.

More worryingly, allied to this hunger for stimulation there is a creeping trend for reading to be viewed by children themselves as something not cool to do or to be seen doing.

Books have to compete really hard to survive in the modern arena, which means that writers have to muscle up, cut the fat and give the audience a good show. That does not mean dumbing down (I love to throw in unusual words and even the occasional philosophical question) but it does mean entering the virtual world that today's nine to 12s inhabit. There is a fine line between entertainment and education; too much of the latter and it is zapper time.

Although I try to write the sort of "classic" fantasy fiction that inspired me I am inescapably influenced by modern TV and cinema. I see that, quite unconsciously, I create set-piece "scenes" that hopefully push and develop the action in a way young readers are familiar with on screens.

In fact I wonder if electronic reading devices, and the ongoing developments to make them more interactive and personalised, might turn out to be the digital saviours of children's literacy.

Discovering a love of reading is like finding the key to a personal treasure house. Helping a child to find the right key to unlock their door is vital. When all else fails there are the H words: horror and humour. These are good starting points to encourage reluctant readers. Children are tougher than you think and boys in particular like to be grossed out. It's a rite of passage. I recently overheard a conversation between three lads aged about 10 in a bookshop. They were browsing the Darren Shan selection, reading out the "best" gory bits.

After an especially grisly paragraph had been shared aloud they fell into a reverential silence broken at last by one of them breathing the word "awesome".

MIND YOU, young readers are very principled and good must always triumph. Villains have to be big, bad Mand terrifying but also defeated. The elephant trap for writers here is the moral message: there is nothing that children despise more than a sermon.

As a teacher friend of mine once warned me: "Children can sniff out a lesson in a fiction book at a hundred miles."

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