WHY WON’T JOHNNY READ?

by John M. Floyd

A pro-literacy phrase that I remember from my childhood was one I never liked, back then. It popped up a lot, in everything from magazines to newscasts: Why can’t Johnny read? I of course didn’t like the question because everyone called me Johnny as a kid, and by jiminy, I could read.

These days the phrase is no longer as applicable, I suppose, since most Johnnys can read, but there’s arguably a bigger problem now: many of them don’t want to. And it’s not just Johnny– it’s his whole family.

My non-reader friends don’t seem to understand my concern. They say they don’t dislike reading; some say they even enjoy it now and then. It’s just that they “don’t have the time.” Well, excuse me, but I don’t think that holds water. If they have time to watch a TV program (and I hesitate to imagine which ones they do watch), then they have time to read. Besides that, if they really enjoyed it, they would make the time. I don’t get upset about it anymore, but I do feel a little sorry for them. They don’t realize what they’re missing.

Let me admit here that I have no statistics for all this. Maybe non-readers aren’t as big a group as I suspect they are. But I’ve spent a lot of time in bookstores these past few years, both as a signer and as a customer, and when I watch the area just outside a mall bookstore, the vast majority of passersby … pass by. Only a small percentage stop and come inside. (Many of those who do enter the store go straight to the cookbook section or to the racing magazines and never look at anything else, but don’t get me started on that.) Some passersby– especially young people– even seem to move over to the other side of the walkway until they’re clear, as if the store contained Kryptonite instead of books. I have a feeling you wouldn’t see the same phenomenon outside a store that sells music or videos.

Again, I realize these observations are unscientific, and don’t even include libraries or standalone bookstores, where you don’t easily notice how many people pass them by. But assuming for a minute that my suspicions are valid, why is this happening? Why doesn’t a larger chunk of our population enjoy books, and reading?

All of us know the standard answer: We have more activities and gadgets competing for our time lately, certainly more than ever before. (And I’m as guilty as anyone, there. I’m not only a movie fanatic, I love music and even some TV shows: “Lost”, “24”, “The Sopranos”, a few others.) More serious than our alternative entertainment sources, though, is the fact that fewer parents are reading to their kids these days, and I swear some of the books I’ve seen on schoolchildren’s reading lists are enough to turn them against fiction rather than encourage them. Bottom line is, fewer kids are being exposed to good reading. J.K. Rowling has done much to turn the tide, but she can’t do it all by herself.

So what can we do to help? Well, as obvious and trivial as it sounds, we as writers can try to create tales that are interesting and worthwhile, and as readers and parents and teachers we can support libraries and book groups, and point others– especially youngsters– to stories we’ve enjoyed as well as stories we’ve not yet read. And, of course, all of us can switch off our electronic gadgets a little more often.

Unless a rerun of “24” is on …