Is Children’s Literature Dead?

By Elizabeth Church

With the rise and rise of screen- that’s something that will never change.
based entertainment, Elizabeth Children from a time pre-internet gleaned
Church considers whether children’s most of their stories from books. So exciting
literature has had its day. was an unread Enid Blyton or C S Lewis that
30 some of us were tempted to secretly read
5 Can you remember the first time you were at night, under the bed covers with a torch
told the tale of Sleeping Beauty or Little or with the scant illumination of the landing
Red Riding Hood? No? Me neither. Because light. Books offered us the opportunity to
these stories are recounted over and over
again until children know them by heart.
10 There probably hasn’t been a single time
in history where children haven’t enjoyed
a good story.
Stories are at the heart of every culture
on earth. Myths, legends, epic tales – they
15 are all woven into the fabric of human
society. Stories we are told as children
are embedded deep in our subconscious
mind. Stories are a way to experience
the world safely, to relate to characters
Alice in Wonderland
20 who are not necessarily like yourself, to
reflect on the events of the tale and give escape real life and experience people and
thought to what you might do in the same 35 places we never would otherwise. In fact,
situation. As human beings, we appear to the late 19th and early 20th century is known
be evolved to love a good narrative, they as a ‘golden age of children’s literature’
25 help us to develop psychologically and and produced such classics as The Wind

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 in the Willows, Alice’s Adventures in 85 Is this the ‘digital age’ for
40 Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz.
children’s literature?
Many of these stories are still popular So is children’s literature, in its traditional
today and familiar to the children of the form, dead? Or at least on its last legs?
21st century. Strangely, it seems not. Perhaps this is the
90 ‘digital age’ for children’s literature, for the

Reading for pleasure is waning. stories of the ‘Golden Age’ persist. Think
of recent versions of classics such as The
45 Nevertheless, reading for pleasure among
Jungle Book or Mary Poppins – hugely
children is a declining pastime. The
technical film adaptations that were both
children’s publisher, Egmont reported on
95 big hits. And new children’s writing seems
the latest research into reading trends in
to have mutated to work in tandem with
2018. The report shows that between the
50 ages of 0 and 14, only 27% of children read
other media. Plenty of recent books now
have TV programmes based on them and
(or look at books, if pre-reading age) daily.
often, this boosts the sale of the printed
Think about it - only just over a quarter of
children are accessing the printed word
each day - this is a drop in the figures
55 compared to previous years and continues
a steady decline seen year on year.
So where do 21st century children get their
stories from? No longer dependent on the
printed word, stories can come from films,
60 TV, online videos, computer games and
social media. The sheer volume of screen-
based entertainment is thought to be one
reason why pleasure-reading is in decline.
Why read when you can watch? Screen time is reducing reading time.

100 version rather than being to its detriment.

65 Schools take the pleasure
from reading.
But this is not the only culprit. Shockingly,
schools (the very places where you imagine
a love of literature and reading is fostered)
70 are also thought to be a reason that children
and young people no longer choose to
read for entertainment. The pressure in
schools to demonstrate attainment and to
produce good grades means that attitudes
For example, David Walliams earned a
reputed £13.8 million in 2017 from the sale
of his books and sold 110,000 copies of
his book The Ice Monster in just five days
105 in 2018 - which seems to make the case
that TV or stage adaptations do not mean
children no longer want to read.
The older generation being nostalgic for
the past when many children permanently
110 had their nose in a book is a waste of time.

75 to reading have shifted. Students seem
to relate reading to ‘tasks’ that they have
to do to achieve in school and lose their
enthusiasm for reading in their own time.
115 evolving to include new media. Children
This matters because research over many
80 decades has concluded that reading for
pleasure is influential to psychological
development. It helps children to become
empathetic and also makes a positive
contribution to their mental wellbeing.
Today’s children have more choices and
had YouTube been around when we were
children, we would have watched it too.
It’s heartening to see children’s literature
can now access stories in a variety of ways
and yet I firmly believe the book will always
be one of them.

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