What happened to reading?

WHATEVER happened to the ghost who walks? Or a decent Enid Blyton or Hardy Boys? Examining the reading trends of children in the 10-15 age group, publishing houses as well as parents are surprised that children today are reading grim and brooding plots. It is no longer "cool" to be seen with a classic. Instead, the darker the mystery, and the more the action and violence, the better the book.

Be it J. K. Rowling or R. L. Stine, all plots seem to hinge on an impending murder mystery.

According to Mr. Sukumar, General Manager-Sales and Marketing, Penguin India, apart from J. K. Rowling, other writers who seem to have made it to this year's reading lists have been short stories by Ruskin Bond and some of the Hardy Boys. "Except," he adds, "today's child gets over with reading fairy stories and the like by five or six. It is a question of taste. Books are a bit like fashion and it keeps changing. I suppose children today look for more realism."

Most child psychologists feel that reading tastes have undergone a significant change in the last decade because of the changing environment. While it is easy to blame the media, filled with its violent images, most psychiatrists feel that changing lifestyles too are a cause.

Aggressive computer games and images on the Net dilute the worth of real heroes in "goody-goody" stories. In an age of the anti- hero, children obviously find him much more thrilling.

"Children are more interested in thrillers. It is a world of action and excitement," says Mr. Mehra of HarperCollins, India. He feels there has been a remarkable upswing in the sales of action-oriented games and books.

All agree that school work affected reading. "There is no reading programme anymore," says Mehra. "With so many other competitive activities, books have been side-lined. Though, as Sukumar of Penguin notes, "Give children a good plot and they will read it. You need a story that will grab their attention." A new author following an established style of writing need notnecessarily be successful, he says."I doubt if the same story can sell well again. It is all a question of taste."

Says Mehra, "It has to be tied to something. There has to be an aggressive sales pitch. The tradition of direct sales is really over. Organisations like Scholastic, which have taken a different route to selling books, have had success stories. But all the same each time you need to sell a book, the hype has to outdo other conflicting interests."

According to the librarian of a public school in Delhi, "My classes go empty. Children from middle school rarely come to the library. Forget about picking up a C.S. Lewis. They only want best sellers, the latest names. Why? Not because they want to read it, but because of peer pressure. This is unhealthy. Instead of being exposed to all kinds of reading material which will help them develop individual preferences and tastes, they are like a herd."

And the children? Of course they consider most of the arguments invalid. As a 15-year-old puts it, "It is up to me to decide what I want to read. Who says classics are the best? They are books from another era."

SUCHITRA BEHAL

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