I think it’s safe to say that in today’s modern world, reading is not the first form of entertainment that most of us turn to in a moment of boredom. The world of onscreen entertainment offers an easy way out of a rut and most of us are guilty of relying on it way too often, myself included. I want to talk about something most adults would push away as immature or too easy but that I think is a really helpful tool for keeping reading relevant in today’s world. I’m not here to preach about the elitism of reading over bingeing Netflix of YouTube because I’m in that team too. I just want to offer up a different option, one you will most likely have been persuaded away from either consciously or subconsciously, and convince you to give it a shot.
Read books meant for children. That’s it. That’s the trick.
I have been lucky, growing up in a house with supportive parents and a mum who understands the importance of reading for children from an academic point of view. She knew how vital it was that I read when I was younger and managed to instill in me a love of books that I hope I never lose, so thank you, mum. It wasn’t cool, however, to like books as a teenage boy, and so there was a long period of time throughout high school where reading took a backseat in my interests and it was only with my A-levels and the realisation that I wasn’t much good at anything else where I realised an English degree was the way forward and therefore I had better start reading properly again. I had always had a book on the go but I knew that if I wanted to study literature I had to teach myself to want to read again and so I did. It’s not always as hard as it seems, you just have to put aside some time each day, even if it’s only twenty minutes, where you focus solely on your book.
So I started uni and the reading really ramped up and I was set at least one or two texts a week to get through. At this point things started to change again. Reading went back to being a chore and I stopped putting aside time to read for myself. I was just focused on pushing through all the uni content and forgot all about the pleasure of the books, this wasn’t helped by the absolute bore of some of the content we were set… Anyway, it goes on and on like this for a couple of years and that brings us to the summer just gone. I decided I needed to change something because I still had another two years of an English degree to get through and I was sick of just reading the set texts and the literary canon. Books had really lost their appeal.
Then came Philip Pullman. I mean metaphorically he came along in the form of a copy of Northern Lights that was on display in the window of the bookshop. They were promoting his original fantasy trilogy in the coming months before a new edition was released and I thought there was no harm in giving it a go. I strolled straight through the shop to the back where the kids books are kept and I picked up a copy and within a month I had finished the first trilogy, and the first book of the following series, waiting with baited breath for the next leg of Lyra’s journey. It was this discovery of Pullman’s magical storytelling that reminded me what reading is really about. Too often, especially among English students I must say, there is a pressure to read certain things. Nobody is impressed that your favourite book is meant for 9 year olds, you need to love Steinbeck, Dickens, Fitzgerald and all the other white men that make up the canon. But why? Reading is about storytelling no? And since that discovery of Pullman’s series I have turned almost solely to books aimed at people half my age. The stories are just as gripping and so much more accessible. This is not to say that we should only read children’s books, of course, I still adore the more complex, nuanced language and narratives of an adult novel and upon my return to uni in the UK will no doubt have to read many more of them but I can no longer ignore the appeal of stories aimed at our youngest readers.
Even if just used to reset ourselves from time to time, they are invaluable. Find yourself stuck about what to read next? Not willing to commit to an enormous hunk of 500 pages? Turn instead a kids novel. They take a fraction of the time to read because of their simpler language, bigger font and smaller word-count. This makes them so much less daunting. Sometimes I just pick one out and can finish it in an afternoon if you really have nothing else that needs doing.
If you have found yourself stuck with reading recently, I urge you to choose an easier book. Ignore the pressure that adults have to read big books. It doesn’t make you any less mature or intelligent to turn to a kids book once in a while and it may just kindle a flame inside you somewhere that pulls you back towards a book.
Please keep letting me know your thoughts on this blog, I really appreciate your feedback and if you are inspired by this post and want to give kids books another go, drop me a message and I can send over some recommendations.
Thanks as always for reading, big love to those who kept reading to the end.
J