Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch has another one of those "young people don't read anymore" essays in this morning's paper. Here's the response that I just emailed to him:
Dear Will Bunch:
Whenever I see an article or essay about how young people don’t read anymore, my first inclination is to ask its author, “Well, what are you reading now? When’s the last time you read a book?” I run the Bookshop at Bryn Mawr College, where it’s obvious that there are still students, faculty and staff on our campus who read books. Not everyone and maybe not at the volume we’d like, but the basic idea that books are a part of our lives holds here. If that’s not necessarily true in all elements of society, can we blame kids?
Young people are an easy mark, so columns like yours cast aspersions without targeting the unbooked grown-ups who have erased books. I’m not talking about conservatives (and sometimes liberals) who practice censorship. Bad as that is, I’m even more concerned by something that’s more widespread, more pernicious, and more accepted: the simple removal of books from our presence.
The Inquirer is reporting again this weekend on the lack of libraries in Philadelphia public schools. The lack of books in schools and the lack of qualified librarians to help kids find books that will engage and excite them is an enormous missed opportunity. This is also taking place in higher education, where books are outsourced to online vendors — out of sight, out of mind — and college “bookstores” have become “campus stores,” reduced to peddling logoed merch. Another missed opportunity, especially sad in communities that are supposed to be about knowledge and discovery.
Even your own newspaper has more or less banished books from its pages. The Inquirer used to offer excellent coverage of books, with reviews every Sunday and other notes about the local literary scene. Now, we might see the occasional piece about a local bookstore — we are fortunate to have so many in our area — but an article just about a book? The Inquirer does not do this often enough.
So perhaps the real question isn’t “When’s the last time you read a book” but instead “What gives you the standing to complain about anyone’s reading habits, let alone the young people who made none of the decisions that removed books from their lives?”
You get to a reasonable place, more or less, by the end of your column: yes, we need to instill a love of reading early. But this isn’t really about early, it’s about always. And if books aren’t always present, how is it that we can expect anyone to read them?