From the chapter ‘Voice‘
Michael Tyler, Poet, author and writer of children’s literature
When I was 15, I experienced The Big Bang, albeit in my mental universe. An expanse of thought exploded into existence in my mind. From it, the substance and matter of every precept and perspective that shapes and directs my life came into existence. Although the origins of the event that spawned the galactic world remains unknown, I knew what sparked the birth of my intellect: reading. Books gave me the ‘ylem’, the primordial substance of my faculty to ruminate, reason and resolve.
I discovered a love of words by age five. I likened them to crayons in that having more of them meant having the ability to create more detailed and appealing pictures of understanding when I spoke or wrote. I saw words as colours for my thoughts. Going to libraries filled me with the excitement of going to a toy store. Books were collections of mental pigments authors had assembled for me to use. Of all books available to me, I became most enamoured with dictionaries. They were filled with thousands of ‘markers’ and ‘pencils’ and ‘paints’. Their diagrams, images and photographs provided visual dimension to comprehension. More hues and tones surfaced from the etymologies provided. The more words I learned, the more I wanted to discover the portraits on the pages of other books.
What if children were encouraged to become the Crayon Masters of their minds, the wordsmithing artists of their intellects? What if they were given unbound access to read as many books as they could acquire, to put at their fingertips an endless palette of expression? What wondrous works might they offer to the galleries of culture throughout the world?
These are questions that, in part, led me to become a writer. After reading an early masterpiece, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,[i] I dreamt of one day writing a book that would make a child feel and think the way that The Little Prince did for me. I came to understand an even greater importance for words and reading.
One aspect is that adaptation is the facilitator of all evolution. This is true regardless of the realm we might apply that word. Lacking the ability to adapt is to be in jeopardy of becoming obsolete and at risk of becoming extinct. Possessing the most capacity for adaptation means the greatest chance to survive and the best possibility to develop, advance and thrive.
The other aspect is that it is not the opposable thumb that we humans should credit with our astonishing adaptability and remarkable evolution. It is our ability to conceptualise, articulate, convey and write words. Everything in the realm of comprehension is a word. ‘Fire’ is a word that can be given as a command to launch a nuclear attack that could destroy life as we know it. ‘Stop’ is a word that can halt a lethal intent and save a life. The enormity of significance weighted in words truly carries the importance of life and death.
That importance has a profound correlation to literacy. As an African American, when I consider the debilitating and demoralising disparities that exist in my country, and their impact on the social evolution of those most disadvantaged by the racial and gender inequities of our society, I am awed by this truth: a less-than mentality will never yield a greater-than reality.
We know that illiteracy is intergenerational. Families of impoverished and underserved communities are in self-perpetuating incapacitation. These consequences are not just systemic to the USA. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Literacy Foundation (WLF) estimate globally that one in five people are completely illiterate, two-thirds of whom are women.[ii]
These are some of the consequences that await children who lack supported reading initiatives and practices. Likewise, immeasurable harm is done to their social-emotional development, something the ‘unity’ in community requires. Reading exposes children to different people and customs, enabling them to cultivate a sensitivity and relatability to others who do not look like them. Books present diversity as an opportunity, not an obligation.
Publishers remain indolent about this. Children in the USA are 2.5 times more likely to find a talking animal as a main character than an African American child.[iii] A similar dearth exists for children in the UK. The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) found that of 9,115 children’s books published in 2017, only 4 per cent featured a Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) character.[iv] The doors to social equity are found inside books. Through them, children can find, within themselves, something essential to the evolution of any society: empathy.
Empathy is not a synonym for sympathy. Empathy is an emotional connection to the value of a universal humanity inherent in everyone. Where sympathy feels for, empathy feels as. This distinction is critical for the architects of educational infrastructures. Here’s why.
All evolving societies are most dependent on two things. Natural resources and technology? No. Military might and wealth? No. Compassion and sensibility. Compassion is a demonstration of concern and consideration. In that it is a demonstration, we ‘show’ compassion, it is a conduct. Were more people to understand this and show it, the conduct of what elevates and unites us all would prevail over the conduct that demotes and divides us. Sensibility is a practical, unbiased assessment that informs strategies for constructing and ensuring that societies are equitable and beneficial to the most people.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the advocacy of reading can empower our children with the thing evolution and adaptation are most dependent on: creativity. The capacity to imagine, ideate, generate, recognise, develop and inspire allows for the invention of what is alternative and what is transformative.
I remember reading, as a child, a quote that wonderfully explains this causality: ‘The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.’[v] Creativity, the new idea, is an evolutionary imperative. It requires an expansion of thought beyond the constraints and biases of what is customary, indoctrinated and systemic – all of which define inertia and regression, the antithesis of evolution. To live in a society that does not protect, preserve and promote creativity is to live with the imprisonment of banality, the subjugation of aspiration and the impossibility of improvement.
Here lies the power and promise of reading, to reveal the ‘I’m possible’ in ‘impossible’, to pardon the spirit of originality from the imprisonment of status quo. The possibility of a Big Bang moment awaits all children. Their likelihood of experiencing it is contingent on the discovery of words that will expose them to the worlds of their imagination. Like the cosmos above us, the number of universes contained within books is limitless. Reading is how they will get there. It gives them their voice. They’re just waiting for us to act with the empathy, compassion, sensibility and creativity to realise this – for them.
Notes
[i] de Saint-Exupéry, A. (1943) The Little Prince, New York: Reynal & Hitchkock.
[ii] World Literacy Foundation (2018) The Economic and Social Cost of Illiteracy, https://worldliteracyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/TheEconomicSocialCostofIlliteracy-2.pdf
[iii] Huyck, D. and Park Dahlen, S. (2019) ‘Diversity in children’s books 2018’, Blog, sarahpark.com [Created in consultation with Edith Campbell, Molly Beth Griffin, K. T. Horning, Debbie Reese, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, and Madeline Tyner, with statistics compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center], School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, https://readingspark.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/picture-this-diversity-in-childrens-books-2018-infographic
[iv] CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education) (2021) Reflecting Realities: Survey of Ethnic Representation within UK Children’s Literature, London: CLPE, https://clpe.org.uk/research/clpe-reflecting-realities-survey-ethnic-representation-within-uk-childrens-literature-0
[v] Wendell Holmes Sr (1858) ‘The autocrat of the breakfast-table: Every man his own Boswell’, The Atlantic Monthly, September, Boston, MA: Ticknor & Fields, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/03/29/stretch, p 502