CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

Gen X and Gen Y we know about, but a long article in Newsweek magazine this week is talking about Gen R. And it’s good news for readers.

Generation R (R is for Reader) talks about the boom in YA publishing, and how it’s not all about Harry Potter. David Levithan is quoted as saying we are in a ’second golden age’ for young adult books - ‘the most exciting time for young-adult literature since the late 1960s and 1970s when ‘The Chocolate War’ [by Robert Cormier] and ‘Forever’ [by Judy Blume] were published.’

We knew that, but it’s great that Newsweek is spreading the word.

You’ve got to like what they are doing with promoting children’s literature in the UK. Not only do they have a Children’s Laureate, a national centre for children’s books and have declared 2008 the National Year of Reading, there is now talk of a prestigious national award for children’s literature.

Already dubbed ‘the children’s Booker’, the award is intended to compensate for the demise of the Nestle Awards. It was announced earlier this year that these awards, some of Britain’s longest-running, would be discontinued and the focus placed on the book giving schemes Bookstart and Booked Up. Wendy Cooling gave us an overview of the success of the Bookstart programme at the recent CBCA conference.

In Australia we have the national CBCA Book of the Year Awards, and various Premier’s Awards in some of the states, but just imagine the prestige of a Miles Franklin Award for children’s literature. Oh, and a Children’s Laureate would be rather nice, too.

Some copycat ideas are worth pursuing.

The literacy debate rages, certainly throughout the English-speaking world. Here in Australia, a new title by Monash University’s Associate Professor Ilana Snyder has made front-page news in The Australian newspaper. The Literacy Wars : why teaching children to read and write is a battleground in Australia took up many column inches on the weekend of 2-3 February. A CMIS review will appear in the Resource Bank soon.

In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has launched the National Year of Reading - an initiative designed to put reading high on the national agenda. And that’s reading for everybody, not just people at school.

Now in the US, a school librarian has put his spin on what he feels are the reasons teens are reading less. We are all reading less, he argues. ‘How long is it?’ has replaced ‘Will I like it?’ in school libraries because the information overload tipping point has been reached. These days we all skim in order to survive. We have become a culture of searchers, not readers. It’s a thoughtful piece, well worth reading. But if he is right, does it mean that reading for pleasure will soon be the preserve of those with the leisure time to ‘indulge’? Hooking kids into books is one of the most satisfying aspects of the teacher-student relationship. Making sure that keeps happening is more important than ever.