We know the obvious and less obvious benefits children can glean from developing a life-long love of reading – the widening and deepening of knowledge and understanding, the ability to empathise, to explore and discover, to be comforted, excited and challenged, to spur confidence and creativity. Like many storymakers, I speak of all this often in the hope that we provoke debate and ultimately contribute to the enriching of children’s lives, and life chances, through a love of stories. That’s my hope.
I can bemoan the closing of libraries, the homes where parents don’t read to their children, the schools where stories are used simply as fodder for teaching literacy to the test. I could blame successive governments who have indulged in short-termism in their education policies and insist that measurable outcomes and results are the be-all and end-all of the education process, who often make a chore out of reading and succeed so often only in banishing enjoyment. But that would be passing the buck.
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