This week, Philip Pullman spoke to BBC Radio Wales about whether children are reading books that are too easy, as well as giving us another snippet about the book of dust. You can listen to the radio interview here<\/a> between 26:30 and 30:00. If you aren’t able to listen, we’ve transcribed it below.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BBC:<\/strong><\/td>\n| How much of a problem is it that children are reading books that are too easy for them, essentially? Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m very happy to say that actually Philip Pullman, the award-winning bestselling author of, for example, the His Dark Materials trilogy, is on the line now. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also the patron of literature Wales. Good evening to you.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | PP:<\/strong><\/td>\n | Hello, nice to talk to you.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | BBC:<\/strong><\/td>\n | And you too. How much of a concern is it that it seems children in secondary school now seem to be reading books that are essentially too easy for them?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | PP:<\/strong><\/td>\n | Well it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting to read that and to hear about this particular problem. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t surprise me, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to hear a little more about the context. For example, how many of the secondary schools surveyed had a proper library, with a functioning with a fiction section and a trained librarian in charge of it? Because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the thing that makes almost the biggest difference of all. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not surprised to learn that children are reading easy books., why wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they? They always have done and they always will do. I read easy books sometimes, when I read a thriller, you know, because I read other things. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only because I was enabled to read more complicated, and more interesting things, perhaps, when I was young, because there were libraries.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | BBC:<\/strong><\/td>\n | Philip, is there a case, because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking at teenagers here, where there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of pressure on children in school these days, and an awful lot of work to do in their studies. Is it a case that perhaps when they are reading for pleasure, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking for something that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to tax them?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | PP:<\/strong><\/td>\n | That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very good point, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re right. There is far too much work done in schools, not only by children but also by teachers, who have to complete endless forms, filling in reports, studies, and that sort of thing, and this leaves them pretty well exhausted, and unable to do any proper teaching. Our society has become obsessed by results and facts and figures. We demand that everybody should fill in forms and take care to show us they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re better than they were the last time they did the test, which is absolutely absurd. What we really need, if we want a nation of reading, children and adults as well, is books, time, and silence. Children are very willing to read anything if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re led to it and encouraged, and are given the time to read it properly. But we want instant results. We want things to be shown up at once, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the way that good stories work. They take a time to settle themselves in the brain, they take a time to mature and come to life, or germinate if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the metaphor that makes most sense in this current context, and come to flower. It takes time. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it immediately, and children, who are very tired after lots and lots of these silly phonics exercises and the other things to do, of course attempt to read easy books. Why wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | BBC:<\/strong><\/td>\n | For example, though, you have a new book, not that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an easy book, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to wait and see. You have a new book out in October, The Book of Dust. Fervent expectations about what that will mean. Can you give us any insight into what we can expect?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | PP:<\/strong><\/td>\n | Yes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s set in the same world as His Dark Materials, with some of the same characters. The main character is Lyra, the girl who is the centre of His Dark Materials. She is at the centre of this story. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a sequel because some of it occurs after that story and some of it occurs before it. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a prequel, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a sequel, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve said it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcequel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a different story, set in the same world and it stands beside it, not before it or after it. I hope people will like it, because I certainly enjoyed the many years it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taken me to write.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | BBC:<\/strong><\/td>\n | There we are. Thank you very much for your time this evening, Philip Pullman there.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" | This week, Philip Pullman spoke to BBC Radio Wales about whether children are reading books that are too easy, as well as giving us another snippet about the book of dust. You can listen to the radio interview here between … Continue reading |