Chels

It seems like World Book Day sparks discourse every year lately, but this year I think the discourse became a lot more widespread. This year is also the first World Book Day since I started teaching, so perhaps I’ve subconsciously paid more attention to it (although the children’s literacy crisis has been a concern for me for a while).

When I was in school, World Book Day was not quite as big an event as it is these days. My earlier memories of the day are of taking in favourite books to read and talk about, and having teachers read books aloud. As I got older, dressing up for World Book Day became the more common celebration. It went without saying, children were supposed to dress as characters from their favourite books – or, more often, characters with iconic costumes that parents could recreate. What mattered was that the focus was on books – the day was still primarily about celebrating reading.

In recent years, though, the day has become less about celebrating books and reading, and more about just dressing up. More and more, children are dressing as film characters or celebrities. It’s a hard thing to criticise, because, yes, in the grand scheme of things, does a costume worn one day a year really matter? Not so much. The thing is, though, it reflects wider societal attitudes.

The point of dressing up for World Book Day was to have a fun activity to celebrate and encourage reading. (Although, I was a child very stuck in my routines – I loved reading, but I didn’t particularly enjoy dressing up). The fact that children are dressing up as anything but book characters isn’t necessarily the problem, it’s more the way that criticism is responded to. A lot of parents have responded by saying that their child simply doesn’t have a favourite book character, or prefers watching films or television. They say it as if it’s a great comeback against ‘haters’, but really, it shows why their child doesn’t care much about books. We aren’t born with a love of reading – we aren’t even born knowing how to read. It’s a vital life skill, though, and while one can learn to read later in life, it’s much easier to lay the foundations in early childhood. If your young child doesn’t care about reading and you read to them and try to find books that they are interested in, that’s not a problem. But in a lot of cases, the children that don’t care about reading have that viewpoint because their parents don’t care about them reading. 

Young children need to be read to so that they can understand the process of seeing and identifying words – it builds the foundation for their own reading. Children whose parents read to them develop wider and stronger vocabularies, and it lays the foundation for having an easier time in education and achieving better qualifications. Those same skills are not developed through watching films or television, no matter how educational the content is marketed as.

The people that hold these attitudes also seem to think that reading is just fiction, and just done for pleasure. The thing is, reading and literacy in general is essential for navigating life. Young children are (rightfully) not interested in reading non fiction and understanding professional communication, so reading books is encouraged to build the skills needed later in life. And even if it was just for pleasure, that’s certainly not a criticism. Because in that sense, the films or shows their children enjoy are just for pleasure. The tablets that so many children seem to be addicted to are just for pleasure, but for some reason, they aren’t seen as pointless the way that reading is.

It’s so frustrating to see so many adults holding these views, especially parents. Young people have been at developmental and academic disadvantages since the covid lockdowns, and while they probably have had the biggest impact in the decline of children’s literacy, they were done for the benefit of their health. The shift away from books and toys and towards screen time, on the other hand, has such an impact on children’s development and education, and it’s not like they’re essential.

That’s the other frustrating argument. So many parents countered this by saying that books are too expensive. The thing is, while some books are expensive (and, in fact, everything is expensive these days), books are one of the few resources that you can still access for free. There are libraries in pretty much every town, they’re free to access and books are free to borrow. Most primary schools have libraries too, where, again, books are free, and children are encouraged, and sometimes required to take books out regularly to read in their free time. It’s also eyebrow raising when parents claim that books are too expensive, yet tablets are not. It’s not a reflection of the cost, it’s a reflection of the perceived value. 

I think this reflects a wider attitude shift. The idea that it’s ‘not that deep’ is incredibly frustrating; we are seeing decreasing interests in literature and the arts in favour of ‘content’ – television designed specifically to be less complex to cater to people watching while scrolling, endless sequels and remakes being prioritised over original films, and literature being summarised by AI so that reading is less time consuming. Last week, Timothée Chalamet claimed that ‘nobody cares’ about ballet or opera any more, while promoting his newest film. There has always been a perception of live theatre being pretentious and inaccessible, but these days the narrative seems to have shifted. Rather than feeling frustrated at the high price points, people now disparage live performances. It’s cool to hate ‘high art’, it’s cool to not get the point of things, it’s cool to think it’s ‘not that deep’.

We’re in a children’s literacy crisis, but we’re also in a crisis of apathy. Indifference is chic, concern is cringe. Highlighting children’s illiteracy is seen as a slight on individual parenting, rather than a systemic issue, and knee-jerk reactions are defensive. It’s become such a difficult cycle, with children’s literacy declining year on year, and World Book Day should be a great campaign against it. Perhaps dressing up is no longer the right celebration. Perhaps we should return to bringing books into school to read.