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Julia Donaldson | Language & Reading: Parents Literary Choices

January 07, 2022

Julia Donaldson|Language & Reading:

Parents Literary Choices

Introduction

As local councils struggle to continue to provide free library access to all, Julia Donaldson highlights the importance of maintaining this access. Julia Donaldson is a well-known children’s author. Her popular books include The Gruffalo and Superworm. Superworm has been animated for television and its airing on Christmas Day led to Julia talking to Sky News reporter Katie Spencer. (follow https://news.sky.com/story/gruffalo-and-superworm-author-julia-donaldson-says-childrens-literature-deserves-more-respect-12498982 for the full report)

Research, in the educational sector, has repeatedly shown the effects of poor language development. For example, see Blanden, 2006, Bercow, 2008, Tickell, 2011, Busby, 2018, Williamson, 2019. This post seeks to highlight the importance of continuing to provide parents with free literary choices for their children and their role in this.

Why Does Literary Choice Matter?

In interview, Julia Donaldson notes that ‘People are always talking about how they want children not to use gadgets so much, they want children to be more literate.’ Donaldson goes on to note how little attention is given to reviewing children’s books and that these reviews often do not extend beyond one column. This lack of attention by the media then means that parents are likely to be poorly informed about the literary choices that are available to them and their children. In turn this then impacts on reading and learning.

Donaldson has written over 200 books. Apparently, in the UK alone one of Julia Donaldson’s books is purchased about every 11 seconds. Over the last decade Donaldson has sold over 27 million books. It is therefore not surprising that Julia has a keen interest in the ongoing needs for children’s language learning, in terms of reading. Perhaps the most important aspect of this is her desire to see her books continue to be offered with free access through the library system.

Without more media exposure and this free access, parents and their children will have limited choice in terms of the books that are accessible to them.

What Does This Lack of Choice Mean to me and my child?

If media coverage for children’s books does not increase and library membership is not well supported, children and their parents may lose access to the wealth of literature that is currently available to them. At present the UK library system is open to all and caters for children from birth and adults alike.

What You Can Do Now?

Julia Donaldson notes that if children (and of course their parents) are not using libraries, then rather than considering closing them, we should investigate why. Donaldson’s question ‘…how do we get them into libraries?’ then becomes an important focus. Whilst there may be many factors influencing library membership, if we are to maintain the current literary choices that parents and their children have then:

Together

We need to work to keep our literary choices