photograph from “school play” by julia fullerton-batten
The UK’s World Book Day - now in its 14th year –  is a celebration of books and reading traditionally aimed at school children. Teenagers embracing the brave new world of digital reading are the focus of this year’s WBD. In a survey conducted for today’s event, 40+% of teens have read a book on a computer, mobile phone, pad or some sort of e-reader. Teens are being targeted with a new website, Digi-tale, which offers a downloadable new story from bestselling author Louise Rennison, of Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging fame. “How to Make Any Twit Fall In Love With You” will be delivered to fans’ computers or mobile phones in a series of episodes, with an interactive feature that allows readers to change the names of characters to those of their friends. Fabbity fab!! (At the risk of sounding like a lunatic Luddite (sorry Lord Byron), I can’t believe it’s necessary to have episodic books where you can insert you and your pals into the story via a search-replace function to appeal to teens. The serialized novel is one thing, but this “twist” does not exactly inspire, suggesting perhaps that narcissism has become de rigeur).
Of the teens surveyed, wizards and vampires were –  unsurprisingly  – the literary topics of choice, with the Harry Potter series and the terrible Twilight books topping the list of teens’ favorite reads. Also in the top 10 were Lord of the Rings and The Da Vinci Code. The survey revealed teens’ top “book crushes”, with the hottest literary character prizes going to schoolgirl wizard Hermione Granger and Twilight’s shirtless moron/werewolf Jacob Black. All is not lost, Narnia hero Prince Caspian, Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy and Jacqueline Wilson’s tomboy Tracy Beaker also landed high on the eclectic hot-list. Grownups surveyed recalled their most beloved adolescent read as fave of the pimply set, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and 1984 remain enduringly popular reads in both age groups.
So the e-reader will be the savior of the young the world is changing, the genie is out of the bottle, as diesel trains replaced steam, as the printing press replaced the parchment and quill the e- reader will be the medium that progresses literacy in future, for it isn’t really important what children read on, just important that they read, now leave me alone while I shuffle through the remaining 37 years of my life.
