Words beat worms every time
SO, SUMMER’S over, the bucket and spade packed away, t he treehouse has been abandoned, the bikes are mouldering i n the shed and kids all across the country are back behind their desks, trying to focus on something other than how many worms they can hide in their sister’s shoes. For some, the chance to escape into a book will be a real treat. For many, it will feel like one more thing to master, along with shoelaces and remembering not to pick one’s nose in public.
I have the utmost sympathy, because I find new books intimidating, too, and I’ve had 34 years to practise my reading. If I were seven, still groping my way through the tangled forest of the English language, I might well let myself be drawn away into a world of Xboxes and mildly inappropriate telly.
Authors are very aware of the calls on children’s time and of technology’s powerful allure. We know the jump away from a parent’s lap, away from colourful pictures and into intimidating blocks of text, into plots and chapters and sequels, can just feel unassailably difficult. We also know that it’s the stage at which readers fall in love with books. Getting a seven-year-old gripped is to begin a lifetime’s affair. We know we have to battle for kids’ attention. And we will fight.
We’ve quite the range of weapons in our arsenal. My personal favourite is humour. Irreverence puts paid to the notion that books are inevitably serious, stolid and staid. Not that there isn’t a place for intensity, as any reader of Twilight will tell you (and by “tell”, I mean “hiss”, before quite possibly slamming a door).
But for the reluctant, the busy and the just-plain-terrified, a lovely giggle before bed soon transforms a chore into a beloved nightly ritual. The Ellie May books are as packed full of jokes as I could make them, as too are Andy Stanton’s Mr Gum books, Catherine Wilkins’ My Best Friend And Other Enemies, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and of course, anything by Roald Dahl… Bring home the funny and you’ll have a life-long reader before you know it.
But jokes mean nothing without stories, and this is where books can really make their mark. Avid readers will be deep into their Philip Pullman, but what of those who struggle to follow dense, twisty narratives? Publisher Barrington Stoke produces books by some of the UK’s leading authors, with the brief that the text must be as accessible as possible. Reluctant readers, dyslexics and the easily-stressed will find themselves tearing through them — because for all their apparent simplicity, the stories are fantastic. Look out for mini-books, too, like Joe Craig’s Lifters, a fast, thrilling tale of juvenile pickpockets. At just a few thousand words, kids will have all the satisfaction of having finished a proper book, and with any luck you may find them seeking out these authors’ longerform works.
You don’t need me to tell you to step away from online stores and get children into libraries and bookshops. You know as well as I do that a child is far more likely to complete something they have discovered for themselves than anything they have been told to read. Most important of all, lead by example. If you read, the chances are that your kids will want to read too. Don’t leave it to teachers. If you say you’re too busy to pick up a book, then your children will learn that books are an irrelevant waste of time.
I wish you the very best of luck. Both with the reading, and with teaching your offspring not to pick their noses in public. Now, that really is hard. Ellie May Can Definitely Be Trusted to Keep a Secret, by Marianne Levy, is out now from Egmont (see review in this supplement)