How can a 3 year-old own a smartphone? asks Griselda Heppel. They don't have pockets.
I have just read a statistic that brought me up short. It came towards the end of ‘Why Children’s Books?’, an excellent article in the London Review of Books , Vol 47, No 2 (oh all right, 6 February 2025… yes I know, I’ve been catching up) by Katherine Rundell. Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell The multi-prizewinning author of Rooftoppers , The Wolf Wilder , Impossible Creatures and other enchanting children’s books wrote a passionate defence of childhood reading, how it builds and stretches the imagination, preparing the mind and spirit for experiences that will come with adulthood, while at the same time fostering joy, delight, excitement and escapism. ‘A children’s book,’ she writes, ‘is not a luxury good. It is fundamental to our culture, to the grown-ups we become, to the society we build.’ Which is why, she warns, the decline of reading for pleasure in 8 – 18 year-olds is so serious. According to the National Literacy Trust’s Annual Li...