What is it about reading that repels people? I once had a friend who used the Chapters gift card her father religiously bought her every Christmas to stock up on Godiva chocolates. Despite her father’s best intentions, her trip to the bookstore was always a short, albeit sweet, one. There was also that friend who Sparknoted his entire way through an English literature degree. Or my little brother, who treats a great book series as an overpriced set of door stoppers. Reading is a socially desired activity, and yet, many of us would rather go to great lengths to lie about how often we read rather than simply picking up the book.
Canada has a surprising level of non-readers, as four in 10 Canadian adults struggle to read at even a high-school graduate level, according to ABC Canada. However, the issue of literacy in this country is a much more complicated issue than simply readers vs. non-readers. How come Canadians are shying away from reading? Or do we still read, but not as much as we should? Has reading been proven to have utilitarian value? And what constitutes reading anyway? Do I have to curl up with a paper-and-ink hardcover every evening to be call myself an avid reader, or will Us Weekly do?
These topics constituted much of the discussion for over 100 Canadians who assembled last week to begin work on a national reading strategy. Librarians, publishers, educators, writers, poets, and journalists convened under the theme of “reading and democracy” to set the groundwork on what is to be a three-year plan to imagine and implement a sound national policy for reading. If done properly, such a plan has the potential to ensure that every Canadian is introduced to a book (in its many forms) at a young age, and is encouraged to read throughout his or her learning years. Though the participants disagreed on many things (such as the pros and cons of Twilight), they could all agree that this form of early engagement builds lifelong readers who, in effect, will contribute to a healthy democracy.
The conference itself served as a microcosm for the arguments being waged right now among literacy advocates. When Ana Maria Machado, the famed Brazilian children’s author, opened the session with the provocative thought that literacy must be part of the universal human right, Anosh Irani, the Bombay-born, Vancouver-based playwright and novelist, urged that we need to not only read, but read with a conscience. There’s also the issue of who shows an interest in the state of national literacy. Looking around the room, the tables were occupied by mostly women, presumably with Master’s degree or PhDs in literature or library science. The median age is much older than even other academic symposia. Though the homogeneity of the group was troubling, they made a concerted effort to pull together from their varied expertise and experiences. There seemed to be a general consensus on the need to bring business, medicine, industry, and other institutional disciplines into the realm of literacy at large.
Perhaps the most important issue looming over the proceedings, it seemed, was the uncertainty among literacy advocates about the transformative influence of technology. Will Kindle take over the bookshelves? Is that necessarily such a terrible thought? While the conference was marked by a palpable uncertainty over new media, there was also an apparent sense of openness, including from Toronto’s poet laureate Dionne Brand. As Brand declared her undying affection for book in its traditional form—“My romance lies with paper and print”—she also mentioned that reading offers the ability to inhabit “the other.” If this is truly the case, she continued, then perhaps we should make room for non-traditional modes or whatever of inhabiting this “other,” whoever it may be. That is, she pressed on against the gasps of others, reading must be encouraged regardless of form—whether it comes in a small hand-held device (such as the Kindle or the ipod), or on ancient Egyptian papyrus. Reading is reading, she argued, and even the reading purists seemed to nod along, if only for a moment.
David Booth, a professorial David Sedaris–like figure and Scholar in Residence at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education agreed. After leaving the audience in stitches, Booth soberly suggested that our mission is to celebrate the text form of our time. He argued that instead of grasping onto Gutenberg, perhaps it is time to embrace Google. This, he said, is the only way we will encourage true cultural literacy and allow our schools to create engaged citizens who will learn the delight of the first page, and, perhaps also, of the last scroll.
Whatever form it takes, there was a definite urgency to the conference in regard to the need to improve the general climate around reading. Chris Spence, director of education for the Toronto District School Board, shared a sobering thought: penitentiaries in Virginia can now predict how many cells they will need based on how many second grade children perform under the average literacy rate. Before this thought could settle in, Raymond Mar, professor of Psychology at York University, pressed on. Sharing his research on reading, Mar began with the hypothesis that narrative fiction is the best simulator of social experience. Mar is interested in the effect of reading on social reasoning, and proceeded to prove this claim through a study on measuring empathic abilities of readers and non-readers. His results offered empirical proof to the statement that reading correlates with knowledge, empathy, and reason. At times, facts and figures speak louder than words, and it is refreshing and heartening to see science used in the explanation of human virtue.
As the summit wound down and the groups began to collect their disparate ideas into a coherent action plan, a few points stood out over the rest. Most important was the necessity of a national culture of reading that celebrates the multicultural character of Canadian literature. We are a nation of Margaret Atwood’s long pen (an electronic device that allows her to perform long distance book signings), but also that of Margaret MacMillan’s felt-tipped ones. We are a nation of Vincent Lam’s Giller Prize, and of Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker archives. We are a nation of many, and the impromptu committee who has taken on the role of forming a national reading strategy has an immense task ahead of them.
Yet, as long as the dialogue continues, as long as stories are shared, as long as thoughts are nurtured and emotions expressed, coming up with a way to encourage reading should not be too difficult. After all, as Thomas King emphatically declares, “Stories are all we are. It is how we are known, how we imagine ourselves.” How we communicate them, however, remains to be seen.
How come Canadians are shying away from reading? Or do we still read, but not as much as we should? Has reading been proven to have utilitarian value? And what constitutes reading anyway?
