Juno Dawson – The Death of Reading for Pleasure and How to Prevent it

For the 17th Philippa Pearce Lecture, we were delighted to be joined by Juno Dawson. Juno’s warmth, humour and staunch commitment to readers from every background was rousingly received by an audience whose laughter and shared concern echoed throughout the Homerton auditorium. Tackling the reading for pleasure crisis head-on, she was unflinching in her delivery of the National Literacy Trust’s devastating statistics highlighting the decline in children and young people’s enjoyment of reading, the lowest since records began.
            Spotlighting unequal access to books, ongoing closures of public and school libraries, the impact of the cost-of-living on families, paucity of time to read, and the often-insidious impact of social media, she was extensive in her analysis of the ‘terminal decline of reading for pleasure’. Especially critical of the intense academic pressure on children and young people, Juno astutely observed it’s unsurprising that fun-free environments fail to cultivate a pleasurable reading experience.
            Throughout the lecture, she called out the deliberate political choices which have culminated in today’s reading crisis. Imploring the audience to exercise their political agency, she asked ‘do we vote for ourselves, or do we vote for a child who doesn’t have a book in their hand?’ Although acknowledging she was already speaking to a room of book-lovers, Juno was unyielding in her efforts to impress the necessary, inspirational and life-sustaining function of reading. She noted reading’s ability to cultivate empathy, an invaluable ingredient for unity in difficult historical moments.
            Juno acknowledged that technology is not solely to blame for decline rates in reading in enjoyment, and indeed noted how apps like TikTok can spark inspiration and intense engagement in unexpected books, often young adult texts, driven by reader choice. This notion of choice, and the importance of reader agency and empowerment, free from profit-driven publishing machinations, is essential, she argued, in tackling the reading for pleasure crisis. Noting intersectional issues such as the persistent gap in reading frequency linked to socioeconomic background, she drew upon her wealth of experience as an author and former primary school teacher to emphasise that we must never leave reluctant readers behind: ‘there is a reader in all of us’.
            Finally, considering how we can collectively tackle the ‘competition of digital distractions’, Juno outlawed snobbery. Whether song lyrics, graphic novels, fanfiction or words on Wattpad, ‘reading is reading’. Disavowing the legitimisation of 19th-century highbrow literature over accessible forms of text consumption, and gateways to reading for pleasure like television and film, she encouraged creativity, openness and a robust rejection of elitism over what reading is and ought to be. After her declarationof a  reading ‘emergency’, Juno’s final call to never give up on the power of books was met with resounding applause.

You can also read our exclusive pre-lecture interview with Juno Dawson. 

Zahra Grieve (PhD in Education Student, Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at Cambridge, University of Cambridge)