Libraries are timeless places. There’s always a quiet stillness about them, and though it makes them a cozy place to grab a book and a cup of coffee and lose yourself for a few hours, recent years have given rise to a different, more empty kind of stillness.

That’s an ominous way to open a blog post, but the underfunding of library services and the effects this is having on children’s literacy is an issue that’s stuck with me in the wake of the Bookseller Children’s Conference. Joseph Coelho, the Waterstones Children’s Laureate, described libraries as ‘the heart of communities’, yet they are ‘near empty’ according to Simon Jenkins. Siena Parker said school libraries in particular are ‘suffering from a chronic lack of investment’ and that as many as a quarter of schools in the most deprived areas don’t have one at all. I was lucky enough to have all the resources I needed growing up, but the effects of a poor kids’ literacy rate was highlighted throughout the conference. The number of children reading for pleasure today is ‘dismal’, according to Cally Poplak (especially among the 5-7 age group), and 21% ‘almost never’ read. And when kids grow up without reading, according to Lizzie Catford, it creates generational cycles that ‘further entrench the issue’, making their kids also less likely to read. As a kid who had to be reminded to look up from the page while eating dinner, these facts are hard to conceptualise.

Which is why Coelho’s talk about reinvigorating local libraries made so much sense to me. I’d probably die before I cycled to join all 209 library authorities in the UK (even Coelho said he’s ‘never doing that again’), but it still seems like a worthy goal. Ben White notes that libraries are vital to the local community – they are ‘a place where mothers can take toddlers to read their first stories and students can study’, preserving cultural heritage and assisting those who ‘cannot afford to buy every book’. Neil Gaiman’s observation is a darker one – that the American private prison industry can predict the number of future criminals ‘based on asking what percentage of 10 and 11-year-olds couldn’t read’.

Initiatives like World of Stories (which offers free books and teacher training to schools) are playing a key role in getting more kids the same access to books as I had growing up, but Siena Parker explained that unfortunately these programmes aren’t indefinitely sustainable without government intervention. ‘Libraries play a key role in providing books for children’, according to The Reading Agency. They market books to kids with the range of choice that Cally Poplak says is a vital motivator for generating real interest. But right now they’re on life support.

Despite some worrying stats, children’s literature remains profitable. Kiera O’Brien said 2023 has been the ‘second biggest year of all time [behind 2022] by some way’, and one-third of all books sold and one-quarter of every pound spent on books have been in the children’s category. But we can’t maintain children’s book sales if children don’t read, and without libraries to encourage it, that future grows increasingly likely.

Right now, books are still selling. I just hope that in ten years we’ll still have a cozy, quiet place to sit down and enjoy them.

Reference List

Cally, P. (2023) Bookseller Children’s Conference. ‘KEYNOTE – Publishing with purpose’. [Presentation] 2 October, Waterloo: County Hall.

Catford, L. (2023) Bookseller Children’s Conference. ‘Turning the page: What’s ahead for young readers’. [Presentation] 2 October, Waterloo: County Hall.

Coelho, J. (2023) Bookseller Children’s Conference. ‘KEYNOTE – Joseph Coelho’. [Presentation] 2 October, Waterloo: County Hall.

Gaiman, N. (2013) Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Jenkins, S. (2016) Libraries are dying – but it’s not about the books, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/22/libraries-dying-books-internet (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

O’Brien, K. (2023) Bookseller Children’s Conference. ‘KEYNOTE – Strength to Strength: Children’s book market growth and trends in 2023’. [Presentation] 2 October, Waterloo: County Hall.

Parker, S. (2023) Bookseller Children’s Conference. ‘CASE STUDY – World of Stories’. [Presentation] 2 October, Waterloo: County Hall.

The Reading Agency (2023) Library Facts. Available at: https://readingagency.org.uk/about/impact/001-library-facts/#:~:text=Libraries%20play%20a%20key%20role,read%20more’%20(18%25).

White, B. (2012) Guaranteeing access to knowledge: The role of libraries, WIPO. Available at: https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2012/04/article_0004.html#:~:text=As%20gateways%20to%20knowledge%20and,a%20creative%20and%20innovative%20society. (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Zimmerman, P. (2020) Woman Reading in Library. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-reading-in-library-3747474/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023)