Books are going the way of...sewing?

And are we okay with that?

Before we begin…

If someone were to ask you why reading a book matters, how would you answer?

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Gratitude Department

Thank you to Michelle K., our most recent paid subscriber. And thank you to each and everyone of you who responded so enthusiastically both in the comments and via email to my last post in which I channeled Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s approach to memoir in her Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. A number of you tried it yourselves or said you wanted to – let’s see an entry or two!

First exuberance, then something darker

Oddly, the exuberance that fueled that post led me to an unexpected place, one that is a bit darker. As I scribbled and tapped my way through my own version of encyclopedic memoir, I was filled with an irrepressible joy. I didn’t care about perfection. I didn’t care about how my memories might match up against another’s. Inspired by the book I’d just finished, I was just writing, and seeing my every-day life in more vivid colors. Against the current political backdrop, my flicker of joy in the written word felt like defiance.

I was aware, however, an underlying truth that was echoed by Spark subscriber and writer of her own insightful memoirs, Katrina Kenison.

“Never have I been more grateful for every day of my own ordinary life, nor more aware of how privileged and precarious it is.” - Katrina Kenison

That’s what reading the words of another – in my case Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life– can do. They make us aware, they challenge us to try on ideas, imagine, remember, engage. I never thought of reading a book as the privilege it is increasingly becoming.

Two weeks ago, just after I’d published my last post, I sat in my car listening to this discussion on NPR’s It’s Been a Minute in which host Brittany Luse explored what was behind the trend away from reading in general, books in particular. “Books vs. Brain Rot: why it’s so hard to read.” Throughout the 20-minute discussion, Luse and her guests explored the forces that are shaping the low literacy rate among Americans, what we read, and how we read it, and how the definition of literacy itself is being changed by technology and those who wield its power.

Not fifteen minutes later, I learned from a friend who is a school librarian not far from where I live that she and eight other school librarians in her district are to be fired or reassigned. The same thing happened last year in Gloucester, Massachusetts when the daughter of my best friend lost her job. In both cases, the decision makers cited budget restrictions. In both cases, the absence of a school librarian means the closure of the school library or limited access to the books or the research capabilities for both students and teachers. This was, apparently, acceptable to the administrators, and parents in the Gloucester school. It is too early to tell if there will be pushback from the parents of my California friend’s students.

“For centuries and centuries literacy has been a thing viewed as hostile by people in power. The capacity for defiance is built in because, in reading, you are able to critically understand the world around you, the world in which you find yourself, because you are able to imagine other people’s lives. You are less likely to dehumanize those lives. There is the built-in capacity for imagining your own life differently.” - Elaine Castillo, in conversation with Brittany Luse, “Books vs. Brain Rot: why it’s so hard to read.

What we do know: the steady erosion in public support for education in general and books in particular has worsened. Roughly 21% of adults in today’s America are functionally illiterate. Of those, the rate is highest for those born in this country with English as a first language. Increasingly, those who read do not read books. Furthermore, Luse’s other guest on her show, Abdullah Shihipar, suggests that many people increasingly view reading printed books from beginning to end as a “niche” activity – like sewing or listening to vinyl. To read a book then is special, a nostalgic exercise in authenticity, but not necessary.

I learned to read early when my father taught my brother and me at ages 4 and 5. Reading became one of the most important bonds I ever had with him.

Reading early gave me a sense of confidence, independence, and power. I could read books for and by myself. When I encountered words I didn’t understand or books that were “too old” for me, they just made me want to figure them out. I was no Elaine Castillo who read Plato at age 8 or 9 with her father’s encouragement but I did not shy away from the adult books lying around, the encyclopedias my parents bought one year, or the many magazines that came into our house in a steady stream back then. At school, reading and writing were expected. I struggled mightily with math – a topic for another day – but I never felt excluded from any other subject or idea because reading and writing gave me the ability to understand and to learn. I could teach myself if I needed to. I still can.

The attacks on public education and reading are not new to me but the rage I’ve felt since last week is. What took me so long? I don’t know – I am safe. I have my books. I have my brain. I have what I need. I no longer have children in the school system. Yet, this time, it felt personal. The one constant that has carried me through more than six decades has been my love of books, my desire to read and tell stories. I believe books have and continue to teach me about the world and myself. This feels as vital now as it did when I was a kid. The idea that reading a novel or a memoir or a book of nonfiction is going the way of the dodo bird scalds me. It wakes up the kid inside me who hated attempts to control her. If an adult ever suggested that book was too old for me or not appropriate, I wondered what they were trying to keep from me. Reading anything, particularly books, this was my freedom, my safe place, my power.

I’ve lived the better part of my life without truly confronting the forces that continue to oppose literacy. I was in my forties before I let myself fully grasp that Elaine Castillo is right – throughout history, those in power still do not want the majority of people to read or at least they do not want them to read in a way that asks them to think critically about themselves and the world. These people are not unhappy when overreliance and misuse of social media and technology erode the ability to read, comprehend, think, and act.

Now I find myself in a world where it is difficult to miss the forces aligned against literacy in general and books in particular.

• We have a president who said in 2016 that he loves the poorly educated and they love him. He loves them so much that he is dismantling the U.S. Department of Education.

• Public access to books in our libraries and schools, long a flashpoint in the political and culture wars, is continually threatened in the name of parental rights and religious beliefs. These debates are used to further justify the undermining of public education which has been under assault at every level for decades.

• Integrating technology into our educational approaches is essential and has increased access to books for those who are visually impaired or have difficulties reading traditionally. There is evidence, however, that inappropriate use and over-reliance on certain technologies are reducing literacy among children and adults. Studies indicate that reading comprehension is lower when digital reading than for analog reading, e.g. books, magazines, newspapers - reading material that has been printed for use “offline”. AI is now being used by students to read/synthesize a book as well as to write essays and comprehension of what has been assigned declines.

• Trends in teaching have leaned away from books in favor of excerpts and a mix of media such as films based on the story or commentary found online– this is happening at private day schools with high tuition and in public schools which are often under-funded, especially in poor communities

• Public and school libraries rely on federal funds as well as funds from the state, counties, cities, and private citizens in their communities. Yet, so far, less than half of senators or representatives have signed a letter indicating they will support federal funding for public libraries in 2025.

This seems to fit here…

I understand that I am preaching to the choir here. We in the Spark community have been brought together by the shared love of reading and writing. For me, though, the underlying fuel for this newsletter and for my own reading and writing are summed up in this Virginia Woolf quote you’ll find in the “About” section on the newsletters home page. It’s that sudden illumination that can happen when we read the words of another and follow the thoughts or questions that result. This can happen when we are not looking for anything more than escape. It can happen when we are seeking information we need to make decisions. It can happen because we can read.

Picking our spots - together and individually

As funding for national and international programs is stopped or threatened, people lose their jobs, international relationships thrown into chaos, there is little that is certain about our country’s future or our own. The goal appears to be to leave us so shaken that we cannot act or despair of having any effect. With so many areas bleeding, it has been difficult for me to decide where to focus my efforts to help. This week, though, at least one issue emerged clear and distinct: we will need a reading and thinking population to cope with what is happening around us. This, to me, is worth fighting for. If reading books headed for “niche” status, I can try to make it as big a niche as possible. I invite you to join me.

What does this look like?

For me, this year at least, it does not mean tutoring individuals as a part of a formal program as I have in the past. I does mean that:

• I can support the San Diego Library Foundation in its calls to action to protect funding for our city’s public library system. Perhaps you have a similar group in your community.

• I can call my senators repeatedly (I’m already doing this anyway) and ask them to sign the letter from the ALA asking them to commit to support federal funding for public and school libraries or thank them for signing, and I can invite all my readers here in the U.S. to do the same (this is me, doing that, BTW). Start here.

• I can buy books and/or donate to literacy program (see the Claremont Forum below). Most communities have programs that need books, volunteers, money or all three.

• In each issue of this newsletter, I can highlight opportunities to support literacy programs that you’ve supported or discovered. Know of one? Send me that info or put it in the comments and I’ll highlight it in future issues.

• I can help make banned books available to readers who want them – I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do this and am open to ideas. The first image that flashed into my brain was a kind of Fahrenheit 451 scenario where we meet in the woods and share memorized books. This fit my mood but not reality. Still, I imagine a kind of guerilla reading and literacy programs. Small groups or even two individuals getting together and reading banned books, historical novels that remind us we’ve been here before, difficult books. This may be a longer-term project and I’m open to ideas.

• Read to a child. I don’t have a child in my life but I may try to find one or two I can borrow. I’ll get some book suggestions from

  Sarah Miller
  who knows the books that kids will love and adults will want to read.

Literacy Program Spotlight: Claremont Forum

Spark subscriber Mike W. works with the Claremont Forum, an organization with three primary missions organized around literacy and art. One of these missions is to get books into the hands of incarcerated people. There are many ways to support their mission, from buying a book on the list at Bookshop.org to paying for postage or volunteering. For more information, check out the website and sign up for the newsletter.

If you know an organization that supports literacy and needs help, share that info here so we can pitch in.

More reasons to keep reading

“Let Students Finish the Whole Book. It Could Save Their Lives,” This essay by Tim Donahue is one of the many op-eds and columns out there now highlighting what is lost when books go unread or only partially read. (Thanks to Spark subscriber Rae F. for the gift link). In it he writes:

“The test scores released at the end of last month by the National Assessment of Educational Progress reveal disturbing trend lines for the future of literacy in our country. Thirty-three percent of eighth graders scored “below basic” on reading skills, meaning they were unable to determine the main idea of a text or identify differing sides of an argument. This was the worst result in the exam’s 32-year history. To make matters worse, or perhaps to explain how we got here, the assessment reported that in 2023 only 14 percent of students said they read for fun almost every day, a drop of 13 percentage points since 2012.”

The juniors and seniors I taught last fall had little knowledge of environmental activism or animal welfare when I handed them Richard Powers’s “Bewilderment,” about a precocious 9-year-old who is consumed with saving endangered species as his grieving father struggles to protect him. But the vicarious safety of fiction gave students an invitation to discuss planetary ethics and the power and limits of parental love. This pathos they raised will be a part of their forming identities.”

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Ciao for now!

Gratefully yours,

Betsy

P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…Toni Morrison, Angela Davis on Frederick Douglas, literacy, and what makes the U.S. different from every other country

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”:

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed.

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