Paris Book Festival 2024: 10 tips to give your children or teenagers a taste for reading (again)

If you are reading this article and discover these numbers on your phone, you are in no position to shed a tear. A study by the National Center for the Book (CNL) published on Tuesday 9 April shows that children aged 7 to 19 spend 19 minutes a day reading books, compared to 3 hours and 11 minutes a day in front of a screen. We could have stuck with this observation. Rather, we asked booksellers, authors, literary influencers and academics for advice to make your children want to delve into books again, so from Friday to Sunday, the Paris Book Festival is taking place for a short time in the Grand Palais.

1 Listen to your child’s wishes

It’s a bit like the ultimate test for a bookseller: for a tired parent to shove a child “who doesn’t read anything” into his paws. “We go once a day or almost”convinced Abigail and Marie, sellers of children’s books at Livre et la Tortue, in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine). Hence the well-established technique. “The secret is to hang it with a themethey continue. If he likes video games, we have titles in this universe. Same thing for soccer, for example. The reflex to have is not to offer him a book that is too thick. Otherwise, the rebound effect is immediate.” Once the book is opened, you’re a winner, almost without fail. “And if we see that it’s not working, we direct it towards the comic,” they still advise bookstores.

2 Don’t put comics or manga down

In the 1950s, the American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham led a campaign against comic books, accused of turning young people into delinquent seeds. A thesis that has been undermined for years… except in the minds of some somewhat conservative parents, who must have struggled to notice this figure: 77% of the books read by children aged 7 to 19 are manga, comics and comic books, according to CNL research (four points more than in 2022). There are works that are a synthesis between the two, such as Max and almost knightswhere (small) blocks of text alternate with comics. “Soothes the child and soothes the adults”the booksellers are smiling Abigail and Mary.

3 Do not overestimate your child

You grew up with Harry Potter, and that’s it, Junior and Juniorette are finally old enough to discover the JKRowling saga in text. No precipitation! “When the novel came out, I was 11 years old and I followed the saga by reading the annual volumesays Marie, from the bookstore Le Livre et la Tortue. Today, parents want their children to read the saga from the age of 7. I try to direct them to a work that is more appropriate for the child’s age, after checking their reading level.” We also find this syndrome in the eternal Club of five. “How many people tell me that they read the series when they were 8 years old, when in fact it was more than 10 years, the difference is significant”, is supported by Maxime Massole known by the nickname @AgathoCroustie on the networks and in real life at the Chantelivre bookstore in Paris, who pretends that a simplified version of this timeless classic exists in a pink library. Let’s warn the purists right away: Claude, Mick, François, the dog Dagobert and the others are now using mobile phones in the modernized version of the text.

4 Don’t keep saying “before was better”

Be careful not to make the mistake of idealizing your own childhood reading. Notice for those in their forties reading us. “In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a tremendous decline in the quality of children’s literature.recalls Eléonore Cartellier, doctor and professor specializing in children’s literature at the University of Grenoble Alpes. It was a time when we simplified Alice in Wonderland with a vocabulary of no more than 4000 words. And in the ‘Goosebumps’ collection, which was in vogue at the time, all the information was listed three times. It was a response to… children’s short attention spans, when adults judged they were spending too much time watching ‘Le Club Dorothée’.

5 Continue reading with your child, even when they grow up

It’s one of the most well-established parent-child rituals: bedtime reading. “It’s a moment when we withdraw from the world. It’s a great way to understand the fear we may have about reading by sharing it together, and to better tame it and turn it into pleasure“France Inter explained Sylvie Vassallo, director of the Book and Press Fair for young people in Montreuil, the largest of its kind in France. “It’s a great way to introduce yourself to reading,” she continues.

Ritual and means that must not be interrupted when a child learns to read, assures Eléonore Cartellier. “This is the time to introduce him to more complicated books, even if it means explaining a word here and there or skipping passages he won’t understand.

6 Stop thinking that screens are absolutely evil

The calculation is simple: young people spend ten times more time in front of a screen than in front of a book (the ratio is even worse among 16-19-year-olds, with more than five hours of smartphone/TV/computer use per day, according to a CNL study). So why not try to make the most of this screen time by reading books turned into conversations on social networks, as offered by the Nabook app? Another fun idea, the worldwide Biblioquête app by novelist Timothée de Fombelle (developed by France Télévisions).

In his noted book Factory of digital morons, Michel Desmurget introduced a nuance in screen consumption, between informative time and purely recreational time, which occupies the lion’s share among teenagers. But we may be in for some good surprises, given that certain social networks have become extremely prescriptive in terms of reading advice. Professionals have adapted to these new uses. “We follow influencers on TikTok and Instagrambooksellers explain Abigail and Mary. We also have parents who tell us when this or that book becomes an important subject in the next school. We absolutely have to have it on the shelves.”

7 Be interested in what he or she is reading

Experts have identified two stages of children giving up reading: when they start reading independently (age 7-8) and when they reach the end of high school, where game consoles and smartphones very often crowd out this dusty pastime. There are ways to fix it, and imagine if it was still up to parents to roll up their sleeves without hoping for a magic wand at school. “Are adults even after puberty interested in what their children read?asks author Aurélie Gerlach, who signed the successful series With enchanted sweets. We have to let them choose, look at it positively and talk about it, like we would talk about a movie or a series.”

8 Start by reading yourself instead of complaining

In the same way that students who do well in sports often have parents who are athletes, young readers are inspired by parents who read books. In a study by the National Book Center, 18% of young people surveyed claim that none of their parents read a single book. Or five points more than in 2022, the previous edition of this study. “Read in front of themcalls Eléonore Cartellier. Read alone, but even this single moment will help desecrate the book subject in front of your children. When we put a book in his hands, an 8- to 9-month-old child will have a reflex to turn the pages in imitation.” Another tip is to leave magazines, comics or books in common places. “Get your scrolling reflex, never get lost”concludes the professor.

9 Never consider it a wasted effort

Even if your child continues to refuse to turn the page despite your best efforts, you should not assume that he or she is lost to reading forever. There is still reason for hope. Forget banned 17th-century plays as compulsory reading in secondary school: national education directives now leave more room for teachers to give pupils more contemporary novels.

With any luck, your teenager will be on the literary jury for an award organized by their city or department. And that’s where a miracle can happen. “I vividly remember meetings with professional high school classes where there are many non-readerssays Aurélie Gerlach. More than once it happened to me that a student said to me ‘I normally never read, but here, I managed to finish your book because it is written the way we talk in life’. I don’t know if those teenagers flocked to bookstores after that, but they got back in touch with reading, which is suddenly seen as less elitist.”

10 Ask your bookseller for advice… or franceinfo

“People recognize that they cannot keep up”, smiles Maxime Massola. And in fact, for children’s publishing alone, publishers publish 18,000 titles per year according to the National Union of Publishers (ie 16% of the volume of the book market in France). “Ask us for advice, that’s our job,” insists the bookseller. If you’re really stuck in a crowded cultural supermarket on a Saturday night at 6pm or like two rounds of flan outside the shopping area, here’s a little list (classified by reading age):

• Crocodulation and the mysteries of ParisAnna Bellamy-Lemarchant and Marjolaine Leray
  For “fall into the pot” reading, advises Maxime Massole.
• Marion’s Not So Intimate DiariesFaustina Fiore. “The cover is pink, but this totally unconventional novel is just as good for girls as it is for boys”, slips Maxime Massole. From 9 years old.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. All the works of the English author are ideal for soothing the reading parents of primary school children, assures Eléonore Cartillier: “It’s exciting and there have been many films that are a good starting point for discussing it.“
• Saga Mathieu Hidalf, Christophe Mauri. For your child who loved Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter but is too young to read 900 pages Deathly Hallows. Aurélie Gerlach is delighted with the whole saga, “really cool”.
• Little queens, by Clémentine Beauvais. To recover your teenager who lives with his PlayStation, “today’s classic that touches on all topics of adolescence”comments Maxime Massole.
• Saga Savior and Son (seven volumes) by Marie-Aude Murail. To once again reassure the reading parents of teenagers. “We could almost call her a children’s author since 1987,” summarizes Eléonore Cartillier.
• The one who didn’t like to read, Mikaël Ollivier. The story of a teenager who hates reading and who gradually returns to literature through cinema, devouring novels adapted for the big screen. “Ideal for older children who have a conflicted attitude towards reading”summarizes Maxime Massole.