And in case my review of X-Men: First Class left you thinking I wasn’t so much cultured as hatched, I’ve got an article over at the Voices for the Library site. Please check the site out, not for my sake but because it’s a vital cause – libraries seem to be under greater threat now than they’ve ever been and they need our support. Please pay them a visit.
he Evening Standard has today launched a series of articles exploring “a literacy crisis” throughout London. The article states that a million people in the city can’t read and 1 in 4 children are almost illiterate when they leave primary school.
Without going into the figures in any detail (although my job means I come across similar stories, like the CBI’s findings that employers are funding remedial English and Maths classes for new workers who do not have adequate literacy and numeracy skills), it’s a shocking story. Sure, the report uses emotive examples (like the boy who brought an Argos catalogue to school because it was the only book his parents owned), but even so it’s a state of affairs I have difficulty comprehending.
My parents never had a problem with me being a bookworm. They probably thought I was too easily distracted, and had problems with me readwalking, but on the whole I was encouraged to enjoy books, comics and magazines. Vists to our local library were a Friday ritual, and I can thank that ritual for giving me a lifelong interest in reading and for fostering my inner information junkie. My childhood bedroom was filled with Doctor Who novelisations, Transformers comics and notebooks in which I wrote stories and poems and fragments of conversations. Nowadays I’ve got my own house, but not much has changed except it’s a bit tidier than my old bedroom. Only a bit though.
Books – and yes, comics, magazines and the internet – can be a means of escape, a way of exploring a new world, a means of enchanting our reality and making it new and strange and wondrous again. Fiction gives us myths and adventure and romance, non-fiction provides us with knowledge and new horizons. If children in the UK are being denied this, because of poor parenting or inadequate teaching or government cuts then it’s not only unfortunate, it’s not only sad, it’s a national tragedy. It has profound implications for how we create, invent, compete and dream. And yet the country closes libraries while a quarter of kids in London can’t read.
This is why the Save Libraries campaign is so important, why encouraging children to read is vital, why Hurley’s Heroes distributing comic books to youngsters in shelters following the recent tornadoes in Missouri may not just be a fantastic act of charity but might be a spark that ignites the imagination of a kid who’d never gone near a book before. This isn’t just about the economy and having a skilled workforce, although that’s a big deal in itself, it’s about quality of life and creating the future. The report suggests that the potential of a huge number of children and young people is being squandered and that’s not only a shame, it’s a crime.
And so the challenge for each of us is to do something about this situation. Talk about the books you’re reading, donate your old books to libraries and charity shops and park benches, read stories to children (and make sure you do the funny voices), comment on blogs you’ve enjoyed, quote your favourite song lyrics at every opportunity. And may we help one another discover once again the joy of words and stories.
You read articles like this (via Umair Haque’s Twitter feed), about the treatment of school librarians in LA, and you can’t help but feel society is heading into some dark places. Neil Gaiman has linked to the personal story of one of those librarians – his treatment was unbelievable. Western society makes grand claims about how we’re now living in the information age, but events like this make me wonder how much we actually value that information, or if it’s become something we passively consume rather than actively treasure…
(Some other posts on libraries – when did they stop being institutions we honoured and become a target for every penny-pinching politician who thinks they’ve got a mandate to destroy those things in which we should be investing?)
I could have posted about this week’s clown memorial service held in London, but I didn’t want to freak anyone out. Instead I’ll post this link to a story about how, at the height of the protests in Egypt, a human chain protected the Library of Alexandria from looters. You’ve got to admit, it was an act with a fair degree of historical resonance.
(It also reminded me of how, during the same protests, Egyptian Christians formed a chain to protect Muslim protesters during prayers, an act that was reciprocated. It’s a powerful reminder of what faith should be in troubled times.)
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Sorry I haven’t been updating much recently – that’s been due to a family bereavement. Not going to write much here, just wanted to show support for last week’s Save Our Libraries Day. Therefore, click here to read a fantastic speech by author Philip Pulman on the importance of libraries and why beancounters often don’t understand their relevance. Good stuff…
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