Page 50

Backbeat

Love your library

Great school and public libraries gave Malorie Blackman a lifelong love of books. It's a crime that today's children may be denied the same opportunity, she argues.

One of the first books I remember reading was Mr Meddle's Muddles by Enid Blyton (or was it Mr Meddle's Mischief?). I still remember how the story made me laugh out loud and how I'd immediately reread those funny sections, savouring the words in my head and revelling in the fact that I was reading a whole story all by myself. And oh, the sense of achievement when I finished it.

Every afternoon, just before home-time, our teacher would read us a story. We'd sit on the floor, and she'd tell us tales of long ago and far away. To be honest, I don't remember many of the stories we were told, but I do remember and cherish the experience. And this is where I make a plea for the reading of whole stories. Apart from building reading stamina, reading whole stories gives a sense of order and completeness that just isn't available by reading extracts.

I was lucky - I took to reading like a duck to water. By the time I was five or six, I was reading books on my own. My dad, however, while happy to put his hand in his pocket to buy non-fiction, thought fiction a waste of time because 'it's not real, it's not true'. So from the time I was eight or nine, my local library was my second home.

I certainly couldn't afford to buy my own books and I found the thought of going into bookshops frankly intimidating. But my local library welcomed me. All those books on all those shelves, just waiting for me to pick them up, open them and read them.

There is a Hebrew saying: "Open a book and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city." Never a truer word! I was lucky that all three of the schools I went to had proper school libraries. Not being terribly sporty, the only other option during the lunchtime break was the library, which was more than fine with me.

For me, part of the joy of reading came from browsing aisles of books. I could try every genre, because I wasn't paying! And if a particular book sucked, that was OK - I could just return it and get a new one. That was so important. It meant that, though a particular book could be a chore, the reading experience never was because I knew there were literally thousands of other books to choose from.

Reading isn't just about being taught vowel sounds or learning to decipher and recognise words. It is about access to books. It is about knowing that all manner of books are available, whenever you want them, regardless of how much money you may or may not have.

Reading has opened so many doors for me that I feel intensely saddened when I hear of school libraries no longer being mandatory in new school builds, or of school libraries being reduced to just a shelf per classroom.

And what we are doing to our public library service is nothing short of criminal. As government cuts force councils to slash their budgets, libraries across England are facing closure. The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals estimates that 6,000 librarians will lose their jobs over the next four years.

Not everyone can afford to order books from Amazon, as some short-sighted official said when public libraries were closed in his area. And no, not everyone is comfortable going into a bookshop, even in this day and age.

As far as I'm concerned, our library services are essential, like water - and as my mum says: "You never miss the water until the well runs dry."

Malorie Blackman is the author of numerous books for children and young people, including the best-selling Noughts and Crosses series. She will be among the speakers at the NUT’s Reading4Pleasure conference in London on 11 February. For details, see page 34 or www.teachers.org.uk/cpd.