Part 6 - The Reading Crisis - Why children aren't reading and what we can do about it

For Part 6 we asked all our interviewees for one thing they would do to address the reading crisis. Properly funded libraries and librarians were unsurprisingly a strong theme, but also a rethink about how we position children's reading - how do we find the space for children to read and support children to experience the power and enjoyment of reading so they find their own routes into reading, and choose to do it. 

For this series we interviewed the following people (not all feature in every episode):

Dapo Adeola - Author and the illustrator of many books including Look Up!, Clean Up!and My Dad is a Grizzly Bear.

Sita Brahmachari - Author of many books including Artichoke Hearts, When Shadows Fall and Phoenix Brothers

Dr Darren Chetty - Lecturer at UCL Institute of Education and author, with Professor Karen Sands O'Connor, of Beyond the Secret Garden 

Professor Teresa Cremin - Professor of Education and Co-Director of the Literacy and Social Justice Centre at The Open University

Charlotte Hacking - Teacher Engagement Lead at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy and Research and Curriculum Lead at Herne Hill School 

Jenny Hawke - Children's Librarian and Chair of the Youth Library Group

Tom Palmer - Author of many books including Angel of Grasmere, Resist and War Dog 

Glynn Palmer–Bell - Assistant Director of English at Castle View Enterprise Academy, Sunderland

Louie Stowell - Author of many books including the Loki series, Otherland and the Dragon in the Library

Sabrina Sulliman - English teacher at Southfields Academy, South West London

At the end of the series we will invite comments and ideas from listeners so look out for how you can contribute to the discussion.

Many thanks to everyone we interviewed and to our Co Producer Belinda Naylor.

Transcript

Ali 0:11

I'm Ali.

Katy 0:12

And I'm Katie. Welcome to Mostly Book Talk. This is part six of our series about the reading crisis, why children aren't reading and what we can do about it.

Ali 0:22

So at the end of all of our interviews, our last question to people was: if you could implement one national policy or initiative to address the reading crisis, what would it be and why?

Katy 0:32

The majority of our interviewees focused on libraries, both school and public libraries. They emphasized how well-resourced libraries support access to books, provide a social space for reading, and how a well-stocked library is essential to successfully supporting readers within schools. They also stressed that libraries need knowledgeable librarians if they are to be truly effective. Tom Palmer sums it up succinctly.

Tom Palmer 0:57

A school librarian in every school.

Katy 0:59

Illustrator Dapo Adeola is also very clear about this issue. He says it's simple.

Dapo Adeola 1:05

Open more libraries. It's just that simple. It's not complicated. Build more public libraries, open more public libraries, fund them, train the staff well, facilitate them so that they can be more than just a place that kids can go to get books. Because libraries are so much more than just homes for books that people can borrow. You know, so that's it. It's just that simple. Like just open more libraries or reopen the ones you close. It's not hard. We always talk about how there's no money, there's no money. But there's always money to go to war, there's always money to do things that we didn't ask for. Open more libraries, reopen the libraries, and stop closing libraries. You know, as much as we're talking about this concern for reading, if you really were concerned, you'd stop closing the place that people can go to to get books for free. You really would stop doing that.

Ali 1:51

And Jenny Hawke, Chair of the Youth Libraries Group, agrees.

Jenny Hawke 1:55

It would have to be, I think, definitely properly funded school and public libraries because everything sort of spirals from that, really. And it needs to be every area of the country as well to have that. And obviously, we all welcome the news about a school library in every primary, but it needs to be properly managed and organized, and to have a trained member of staff. So, yeah, I think I would just have to go with that because I'm sure, well, we know from evidence that that really does definitely reignite that passion for reading in children.

Katy 2:46

Teacher Glynn Palmer Bell focuses on every school having a library and a librarian. Glynn also notes the value of a school's library service, which he's lucky enough to still have in Northumberland. These used to exist across the country and support schools across an area with bookstock and advice, but they now only operate in a few areas.

Glynn Palmer Bell 3:02

Every school to have a library and a dedicated librarian. I know that's been the pledge to move into primary schools, and I understand because that's where the drop of reading of pleasure exists at the upper part of primary schools, but it does continue into teenage years. And the one thing that I can see has made the biggest impact is a fully stock library with a dedicated librarian. My worry is that if we don't have a dedicated member staff with the expertise and the time and the brain space to be able to put the collection together and it's just given to somebody else as an additional responsibility, then it won't be successful. And I'm not too sure about the national picture, but the school library services have depleted and have gone just as fast as community libraries. So the resurrection of libraries and the resurrection of school library services, we lean very heavily on our school library service. And it's Northumberland's and it's phenomenal. They do an amazing job. And when we have members of staff asking for particular books, or when these students are asking for a collection of books, we have the ability to be able to switch out books that we know are popular or being borrowed that we were hoping to because the students are in charge of the collection, the students control the collection. But we need to be able to be in a position where we can do that. My worry also around the implementing national policy is non-fiction and how non-fiction is being consumed and how non-fiction books can go out of date so easily and so quickly. When we think about what reading for pleasure means for students, some students it's about non-fiction as well as fiction, and we absolutely prioritize fiction. There's amazing books out there, but the non-fiction books are also going to win over certain students. And if we're not updating them regularly, and they can be quite expensive, then they get we could be missing a strict there. So I think those school library services can really bug the holes and make sure that we're getting the right books in the right places.

Ali 4:56

We hear next from author Louie Stowell, who also highlights libraries, and that we might want to look to Ireland to see where they're succeeding.

Louie Stowell 5:03

Well, I think the base level policy would be raise taxes. But what I would spend that tax money on if it was just focused on reading would be libraries. And it would be ensuring every library has trained librarians and that it has new stock. And also that it's a comfortable space to be, which a lot of libraries are, but because libraries are those spaces you can go to for free, it's making sure it's welcoming. I just think it's one of those key factors in discovery and in creating spaces to read and social spaces to read. Because obviously you get all those like story times and stuff at libraries, you get comics clubs, but I think that's just down to having the money to do that. I don't think there's a library out there with loads of money that's not doing that. So yeah, I think funding libraries is is a real key thing because a lot of the other things are perhaps things that businesses could do, but that government can't, you know. But I think government should just fund libraries. I guess one cheery vision is Ireland. And I I feel like Ireland would not agree because Ireland would be like, we've got reading problems too, but they only really seem to develop reading problems in teenage years, and actually, children's reading. I think they had some recent stats where it's like 90% of eight-year-olds enjoy reading in Ireland. And I think obviously some of that is just cultural in a way that we can't replicate, but I think they do have a social attitude to reading and a social attitude to stories. So whatever we can copy, please do.

Katy 6:25

Professor Teresa Cremin thought that choosing one measure was an impossible task and identifies the need for a more systemic approach.

Teresa Cremin 6:32

It's just the hardest question when I read them before. I thought I was going to tell you, I don't have one. I don't think there is one. I don't think there is one that's a panacea. But I suppose I would really value all head teachers, CEOs of trusts, head teachers in primary, and senior leadership teams across the country to understand the power and potential of choosing to read in your own time regularly, the books and the subject matters that you're interested in. If they can understand the power of volitional reading, they might pay more serious attention to the agenda and give reading for pleasure the respect it deserves. It isn't a panacea, but it can make a very significant contribution both to the academic growth, but also the social and emotional well-being of our young people. And given we have the unhappiest children, according to the childhood survey, in Europe, the unhappiest teenagers across Europe, which is not a badge that sits lightly on mine or anyone else's shoulders, then we need to be doing something serious about it and recognizing that reading for position isn't just on the edge, an extra, a nice to have, but should be the backbone of the way we are working in the school in order to foster that additional reading journey.

Ali 7:45

Teacher and researcher Charlotte Hacking identifies space in the curriculum and stronger subject knowledge so that teachers can help students find their own route into reading.

Charlotte Hacking 7:55

I think the one thing would be how do you bring the meaning of reading back into the curriculum? And you do that through the enjoyable reading experience and the teachers that have the subject knowledge and the autonomy to do it. I don't think you can come away from the fact that schools are in a book crisis. We need much more access to text to be able to do that. We need loads of subject knowledge in going into schools around the phonics. We've had loads of phonics. We now need more around that. What are the other routes into reading and how do we foster those lifelong readers? I think the year of reading is a really good way into that, but how do we make it broader than that as well? Because you don't want it to just be a year of reading, you want a lifetime of reading for children, and how do you do that really authentically?

Katy 8:39

Teacher Sabrina Sulliman agrees and talks about dedicated time in the curriculum. If we don't allow space for reading and only make it an afterthought, then it isn't seen as important or a valuable way to spend time.

Sabrina Sulliman 8:51

Essentially, what we try and build into our school is not something that is built in, which is opportunity to read where you don't feel like it's for a purpose other than your own enjoyment. And to do that in a school where every hour is planned curriculum time, then they have their own enrichment activities or after school clubs they want to go to. You have to work really carefully to build in these opportunities to read for pleasure. And unfortunately, they all become times like oh, we've got 20 minutes in the library today, or we can go down for an hour every two weeks on a rotation. It's important for us to build those opportunities in. But if I could put one initiative in place, it would be to mandate that, to understand that if you're going to ask children to do something for pleasure, then that time has to exist somewhere within the day, then it might become habitual, then they might do it outside of the school day. But at the moment, it feels like we're stealing opportunities, getting in 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there where we can. You can see a kid getting really into a book, you're like, right, that's it, the time's up, date title name, we've got to start with our like learning thing. If there's no space for it within the school day, but there's a space for loads and loads of testing. The message it sends to the children is even when you are reading in school, it is all to prep you for that test. It's all to make you a stronger reader for that test. So there is still ways to capture whether children are able to read, but the opportunity to do so can't be so closely aligned to this idea of testing, and it can't be stolen opportunities within curriculum time. It should be included. I think primary schools do it beautifully, that going to the library and having reading corners is natural. And when you come to secondary schools and you don't have those opportunities built into your day, it doesn't feel natural anymore. And so I think a part of them feel like we're growing up now, we don't do that anymore. And that's really dangerous. And therefore it's unsurprising. I think it was it, 28% of children in 2023 said they enjoyed reading for pleasure. I wonder how many of those children have opportunity within their day-to-day, within their home lives, to just sit and read a book without thinking about anything other than just reading my book. So I suppose I'd mandate that compulsory reading for pleasure time.

Ali 11:03

Dr. Darren Chetty has a specific idea around how children's literature is understood and would like to create a space for critical thinking and discussion rather than just book reviews.

Darren Chetty 11:12

I've been trying to get a magazine off the ground because I think that children's literature in this country does not have a culture of criticism. I've come from doing work around hip-hop and hip-hop education, and almost from its inception, there were journalists writing critically about hip-hop, and you know, there's sometimes the artists didn't like it. But ultimately, the art form benefited from that kind of engagement. Something about children's literature being seen as just for kids means that the broadsheets largely did away with their children's sections. There's very little, and again it gets privatized, it then becomes influencers who are getting money from publishers who were telling us about stuff. But we don't have thinking seriously about children's books in the public sphere. The TLS, the London Review of Books, they very rarely cover children's literature. When they do, there's very few people who would get a word in in that conversation. I'd probably go with the children's magazine, just because I honestly think that it won't have the immediate effect. It won't be something children would read, but it would finally treat children's literature as an art form and by implication take children more seriously. At the moment, what we have is academic writing in journals, which again, the way academic writing is set up is not to be particularly readable or or compelling. So we have this strange situation where the creators of children's literature probably don't read that. The criticism is so far removed from the art form. And instead, a lot of the the sort of really difficult conversations around how we're positioning children, what we owe them, what are our moral responsibilities to them, the extent to which hope needs to be within children's literature. Those aren't happening in in form public spaces, they're happening in publishing houses, often with individual authors having to make a case to the people in their publishing house who are largely in a business, you know. It's it's a creative business, it's an interesting business, but it is a business. And I do think that the art form is diminished for that, and that children, by implication and by extension, are also diminished for that. So certainly, you know, secondary school students, because that access is well, I'm not for excluding children from this conversation, but what I'm saying is often it's been the business directly in conversation with children and excluding anyone else who might think about it from the point of view of education, literature, art, ethics, and all of those are dimensions of children's literature and ones we should take more seriously, I think. I mean, books for keeps are fantastic and are you know one of the best things out there, but they are primarily about helping adults know what's out there and they're gonna be positive. And if you only have three sentences to say to someone, you probably should make them positive. But if you have more space to think about nuance, then perhaps you can bring in things that aren't completely positive but aren't designed to take them down so much as oriented it towards an improved art form. I think that's what good criticism does. You know, film criticism, sight and sound. I grew up reading that and loving how it helped me appreciate film more. And I think you could do the same with children's literature, and it's way beyond time that we had such a thing in this country.

Katy 14:26

So there were some really clear messages there in terms of what one thing people would do, and also all of the interviews that we've had. So, Ali, what do we think the thing is that stands out most?

Ali 14:37

I think it's lack of time in the curriculum for reading, it's just not seen as important enough, you know.

Katy 14:42

Yeah, just reading into your interests, so whether you call it reading for pleasure or reading for purpose or whatever, the pure joy of getting lost in a book or sharing books or laughing about books, talking about books, finding something that you're interested in in a book, there's just no time for it.

Ali 14:57

I mean, at primary it's not so bad, is it? Because it's often done quite well. There's story time and whole class reading.

Katy 15:04

Yeah, but the extent seems to vary massively from school to school. I mean, some people find time for it every day, and it's absolutely non-negotiable. And in some places it just gets squeezed out really easily.

Ali 15:17

Yeah, for other things that come and go. But it's secondary, it totally stops. I mean, there are obviously exceptions, but in our experience it stops, and kids might be encouraged to have a book in their back.

Katy 15:27

No, the same book that they carry around, like a book brand new autumn. Yeah. But that but they never get any real space to read it, or nobody's taken the time with them to choose that book or to recommend them new books which they might be interested in.

Ali 15:41

Yeah, and also it's interesting, isn't it, from the people we talk to, it's always assessed and tested. I mean, children associate reading with English lessons or being tested.

Katy 15:52

Yeah, I mean, they get that message from the very start, don't they? It's like you're going to be assessed as to what colour book you're on, and you go through that process.

Ali 16:01

And at the end of the reading schemes and things, there's again a test in order to move to the next stage, isn't there?

Katy 16:08

And then that just gets built on by each key stage assessment and the pressure that intentionally or unintentionally gets put on children in terms of those assessments and the way in which they're taught reading to do well in those assessments. There's that sense that it's something to be conquered. And that's fine. I mean, I I think it's difficult. I I don't want to get into the phonics are a bad thing. I think for most children, and we know it doesn't work for all children, but for most children, it's a good structured way to learn to read. But I think what what our interviewees were saying is that that's fine as far as it goes. But alongside that, you need to be being clear that reading is about so much more than that. It's about real books, it's about real stories, it's about engaging with them and talking about them. And yes, learning your letters and sounds and working your way through your functional skills as a reader is really important, but there's more to it.

Ali 17:02

Yeah, and if we want to make reading a valuable thing in its own right and not just for testing them, we've got to change that emphasis or swing that's gone so far into the functional sides of reading. I mean, our kids can read. I think we did quite well in those tests for reading. It's just that they're not choosing to read for fun or for interest or just chat about books.

Katy 17:24

And so then their level as a reader, however much they may have the functional skill of being able to read, they never properly become really, really fluent readers because you don't unless you practice it. And so that limits them in that respect, just if we're just going down the skills route. But it just also limits them in terms of well, what that great rich knowledge that they can gain and experience and all of the benefits in terms of well-being and everything else that we were talking about, it just limits that and it cuts out that access to it. But you do understand that if that's all they see is that they're reading to tick a box, why would they choose to do it?

Ali 17:59

Yeah, kids know that they're doing this to in order to pass this test in this particular way. And you know, the news about another test at year eight for reading isn't going to make more children read. It's not. So, in our opinion, schools need to give space to reading for pleasure as well as reading for learning and framing it as something that's good for you, or this will help your vegetables. Yeah, you need vegetables. This will help you with your academic achievement.

Katy 18:25

Yeah.

Ali 18:26

Not likely to engage young people in reading for pleasure. It comes through them making it a social activity, creating conversations about books, time. You know, just time in the library to kind of just go and have a look, what there is.

Katy 18:38

And you might and also just what are their interests? How does it connect with their interests? Does it connect with films that they've seen or games that they're playing if they're gamers, other sports, other activities that they're enjoying, there may well be links across. There doesn't have to be. They could read about something completely different because they spend how many hours playing football, they might not want to read about it, but they might do. But it's just like those kinds of connections and discussions, you know, it's what we do as adult readers, we find things that interest us.

Ali 19:06

Yeah, exactly. Who knows? But without the space and the time to even just get lost in the library for a bit of time, just look at the shelves and go, Oh, this blue book looks like that.

Katy 19:16

Yeah, and also picking up books and starting reading them and thinking actually this just does not interest me, and being able to put it down again and choose a different one. It's all of those things that you have to do in terms of becoming a reader and getting a sense of what being a reader is.

Ali 19:30

And in order for that to happen in a cohesive way, you need adults that know about books. So if a kid picks up a book that they like that's about this, then you need an adult that can say, Oh, you enjoyed that book, that's great. Why don't you try this?

Katy 19:43

But there's no real coverage, I mean, more in primary teacher education than secondary, but in terms of modern children's literature, having a really strong knowledge of that. And also that needs to be kept up to date because obviously new books coming out all the time. So it needs to be part of ongoing professional development, which I think very few schools include an update on new children's books as part of their professional development, which means that they're not in a position to make those connections for young people and to make those recommendations. And obviously, there are individual teachers who have taken a real interest and some schools that do it really well, but I think on the whole, we still find that schools are recommending books which they read as children, which they would probably recommend teachers who, you know, I mean, we we quite often find reading lessons schools that have books on that we read at school. Yeah. And we are quite old.

Ali 20:38

We are very old. And I think also for it not just to be left in the English department's remit that if you're a geography teacher and you've read an interesting book that might be about geography or might not be, then it's also your responsibility, not just the librarian or the English team's responsibility. We read books about everything, and we need reading in so many different ways. And there's a a teacher we know that does a science book club, and that those sorts of things are brilliant. So anything that might play to an interest is really important, but you need to have space and you need to have knowledge about what books exist. I think a couple of the teachers, Sabrina Sullivan and Glenn Palmer Bell, talked about everyone in the school being reading model.

Katy 21:20

Yeah. And you need the books. And you need the books. But it also plays into Darren's point as well about that lack of a critical discussion about children's books. And so that means any discussion of them is in the academic journals, which mainly for academics, or it's review-level recommendations, which isn't a sort of broader look at the role that children's literature has, or a kind of critical analysis of the genre or what's happening in children's books. That's that middle ground that you've got in adults' literature, the kind of times literature supplement stuff, but just a more in depth consideration of what is being achieved through children's literature, because children's literature. Is that strange literature that's written by adults for children?

Ali 22:04

It's commissioned by adults, written by adults, published by adults, bought by adults.

Katy 22:09

For children. But it is for children. And so there are adults exercising choices at every stage of that process. And so interrogating that in terms of what children actually end up with is quite a valuable thing to do, I think.

Ali 22:24

Yeah, and finally, as we've said, they need access to books. We've talked about libraries, but a lot of children don't own any books or have them at home.

Katy 22:31

That came through really strongly was just that awareness of how much the cost of living crisis and poverty and just absolutely that issue of access, that so many children will not own any books or have them in their home. And that comes back to libraries as being that great equalizer in terms of access to books. And the point that so many people made that pupils in deprived areas are less likely to own their own books. And they are also less likely to have public libraries and they're less likely to have a quality bookshop. It's going to be books in the supermarket. And even if money were available for their families to spend on books, you're buying books mainly in supermarkets, and that is a very narrow selection. It's easy to share dappo in everyone else's frustration.

Ali 23:18

There's been a massive disinvestment in libraries. And that is the one place where you can access books, regardless of your income and circumstances. And you can sit and read a book. I mean, not everyone has space, a quiet place to read a book.

Katy 23:32

Yeah. And that is why libraries are just so important. And we've done all this disinvestment, and then we act surprised that children and families aren't accessing books and reading. And you're just gonna think, well, well, really? And guess what? It's the one place.

Ali 23:47

One place. I mean, obviously, there's some real positives around the National Year of Reading. Commitments to fund primary school libraries and some funding for books in secondary schools.

Katy 23:55

Although Yeah, but it's not clear whether that funding for secondaries is ring-fenced. I mean, we've had librarians say that that their schools are quite clear it's not.

Ali 24:03

That that money's coming in, but it's gone elsewhere. Yeah. But then that but that's just, you know, for this year, there's no real long-term plan to keep a refresh bookstore or fund the librarians who bring the real value to having the libraries in the first place.

Katy 24:16

Yeah, so we end up with rooms full of books that aren't updated. They are not easily discoverable by readers because there isn't someone who actually knows them and can make those connections for readers running it.

Ali 24:28

Well, there's just a library full of books published in 2000 and whatever year we're in. So access, as we say, means not just access to any old books, it's a wide range of books so that children and young people can choose. Key motivator for reading. I know, and that's the challenge, isn't it, for schools and librarians, but also for publishers and for everyone in the sector. Yeah. There's a long way to go before we're offering young people stories that act as windows, mirrors, and doors for them.

Katy 25:06

Yeah, yeah. And we've had some progress in terms of diversity of children's books and being more representative, but that ebbs and flows and it's not in a great place at the moment. Maybe it will move forward again. But it it requires that debate and discussion and the constant challenging of how are we serving young people with the literature that we offer them.

Ali 25:26

So lots to do. And obviously, what we haven't addressed is the massive elephant in the room, which is technology.

Katy 25:34

Yeah. A lot of people touched on it, didn't they? How phones are an issue.

Ali 25:40

They literally suck your time away.

Katy 25:44

I think it comes back to the modelling, doesn't it? It's that if we want children and young people to read, then we need to be reading ourselves. And if we're sitting scrolling on our phones and they're sitting scrolling on their phones, then that time is disappearing.

Ali 25:57

Yeah, no reading is getting done. I mean, it's a difficult one, isn't it? Because it's the sum-up of all screen time. Because obviously at school they're on screens for some work that they're doing, and then at home they're on screens for homework or whatever. And if you're dyslexic, then you might need to read on a screen because then the Kindle helps you read. But I think it's about having some space where all of us put the phone down and block the apps or make sure you can't access them for an hour or something.

Katy 26:28

I think it's what Teresa mentioned, which was around sustained engagement and attention, and that that's what we should be worried about losing. That we've got so used to this sort of 30-second, one-minute little videos and reels, and that's as long as our attention span goes. And that that isn't as sustaining. You don't get the same thing out of it as you do really immersing yourselves in a longer sustained narrative, whether that's fiction or non-fiction. I do sometimes think you know that feeling when you're reading and you forget and you lose the sense of time. That's sometimes what happens when you're zoom scrolling on social media, but you come out of it just feeling slightly befuddled. Whereas when you've been reading and you come out of it, it's a very different feeling in terms of having been immersed in that world.

Ali 27:19

Yeah, but the benefits that there are. It's reading for its own sake, not reading because you need to read in order to do X, Y, and Z. It's how do you get back that reading, as you said, for escapism or reading just to read, because reading itself just takes you out of your current situation. Or what I reread when I'm feeling like I don't know what to read, then I'll reread some Jane Austen. Because in that world the rules are quite clear, and you know, because it's a comfort read, because you know what's going to happen, you know that eventually Lizzie will marry Mr. Darcy. Sorry, spoiler alert. And having those reads that you go back to that are for whatever reason are really kind of important to have in your world, I think.

Katy 28:05

Yeah, it's getting children and young people to the point that they have had that experience of what it is like to have been totally lost in a book and or a series. And then once you've done that, you know that feeling, and then you have a kind of reference point in to why you want to go back to reading and why that might be more sustaining and relaxing and enjoyable than scrolling through whatever cat videos or whatever else you get. I get cat videos, you get dog videos. Whatever little corner of the internet is being served up to you. It's mostly a bit dull. So that's some of the things which we've taken away from this discussion, which we found really interesting. And thank you to everyone who took part. We know it wasn't a comprehensive look. We know, for example, that we concentrated on secondary teachers, and there may be some primary teachers who want to take part in that conversation. Other people think that there are things that we've missed or things that you want to add to it. And we really encourage you to do that. Send us an email at info at mostlybooktalk.com. You can send that as an email that we can read out, or you can send us a voice note or a little recording that we can play if you want to add a contribution.

Ali 29:24

It's obviously an ongoing conversation for not just the National Year of Reading but beyond. One that I think we're going to return to because there's a lot to say about it and there's a lot of work still to be done.

Katy 29:36

Yeah, there is a real sense that the National Year of Reading can't just be this year. It's got to be the start of something rather than just something that starts and finishes within the year. If it's going to be meaningful, it has to be the beginning of that discussion, a beginning of thinking about some of these things differently.

Ali 29:51

Yeah. And we'll put another issue out when we gather what people want to say. Our last word goes back to something that author Sita Brahmachari said that places reading at the center of what young people need to thrive.

Sita Brahmachari 30:05

The scale that we need needs to be that all of the amazing educators, the librarians, all of the amazing people in the book agencies that I know, we need to come together and in unity, and we need to say, right, this needs to change, which means I need to have this vision of stimulating the whole of the creative child, making sure that they and their families, their guardians have the opportunity to thrive. I mean, I call it reading to thrive. It's not just to survive, it's not just to pass the test, it's to thrive.