In the past few weeks there has been a lot of discussion about the literacy crisis in America. It all started with the article in the Atlantic titled “The End of Reading is Here” by Rose Horowitch that had a lot of people freaking out and then there was the viral TikTok of that “teacher” in Texas crying over his students (yes I know it was staged but it brought more people into the conversation). As we are teachers, librarians, and other folks within the YA world, we were not surprised with this analysis of the state of reading because we’ve been fighting the good fight for a while now. We know that kids are struggling to find enjoyment in reading. We know that kids are struggling with reading comprehension and that many are reading below their grade levels. We know that kids struggle with the endurance of reading as they are used to reading passages of text rather than whole novels. We know.
While there is legitimate concern about the state of literacy in our country, I also want to highlight all the work that is being done to get kids excited about reading. As a member of NCTE and ALAN, I am surrounded by amazing teachers and librarians who are pushing whole novels in the classroom, creating book clubs, holding reading parties, and engaging their entire school community in the adventure of reading. And it is working. The past LA Times Festival of Books was the biggest ever. I only went one day to the festival so I can only speak to the crowds of one day, but I can say that it was extremely crowded. As in more than usual. I’m usually good with crowds and have never reached my limit at LAFOB before but this year I did. There was just so many people, but there were more booths, more indie bookstores, just more celebration of books. It was a great day. The following week was the Y’all West festival and I always take a bus load of students with me. And again, there was more people than ever before. All of my students had never been to a book festival before and they all shared how much fun the festival was and how excited they were to get back into reading. These two experiences alone showed me that slowly people are getting back into reading again, especially more kids and teens.
Being on the frontlines of the fight and seeing my own students improve in their reading leaves me with hope. You only have to see the response to influencers who are sharing their own reading journeys to see that change is slowly happening. The rise of BookTok is also an indication that there is change happening. I do not deny the statistics of low readership, but I do feel like those of us who have been putting in the work should not feel dismayed. What we are doing is working and we need to continue the fight.
Lastly, society lost one of its champions of reading when Dolly Parton left us a few days ago, but her joy for literature remained. Her family asked for donations to her Imagination Library instead of flowers and so many people donated that the site crashed. That tells you something right there. Folks do care about reading and want to get books in the hands of children. After all, that is where a love of reading starts.
If you wish to donate to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, click on the link.