Miss Pieri as a member of the Society of Women’s Writers and Journalists, attended a Zoom meeting with Penny Holroyde, a Publishing/Literary Agent for Children’s books earlier this month. Miss Pieri said it was very interesting to hear from Penny about the publishing industry’s concerns over children’s literacy and the impact Covid has had on reading trends and left the meeting with the following thoughts:
We are seeing the domino effect in secondary education and it is an ongoing battle to bridge the literacy gap, particularly for disadvantaged children and students with special educational needs; reading is something that is typically difficult for these students to access.
It was lovely to hear of the inspirational and creative storylines for picture books coming through on the market e.g The Wolves book (commenting on gender roles/crime) and the Troll book (about internet trolling). It is important that books depict important issues through powerful storytelling and at a safe distance of exploration for students/parents to begin conversations about the characters/links to real life. More needs to be done on that in order to boost engagement in reading for knowledge and reading for pleasure. In our school, this is something we try to embed within the English curriculum, by engaging students into real life relevant conversations and literary links to current affairs. e.g. Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses in Year 8, to explore conversations around racism and prejudice, and Animal Farm to discuss politics and corruption in Year 9. Teachers in the English Department were pleased to know that the publishing world are tackling the issue of engaging young people in reading for pleasure; it is nice to see the trends on the market are changing too, which tend to be branching out from traditional novels e.g poetry making a comeback (manageable and short) as well as graphic novels (visually stimulating for a tech heavy generation).
It was a very worthwhile and insightful glimpse into the world of children’s books and literature trends!
