Too much of the literature taught in UK schools is putting children off reading and thrillers should become part of the curriculum, one of the world’s biggest selling authors has argued.
Lee Child, the British writer of Jack Reacher novels, which have sold more than 100m copies worldwide, said: “I can totally understand why, if you’re an English teacher and you’ve read all your life and you love this stuff and you’ve been to university, then you want to introduce the big, major masterpieces. But that’s too much for kids.”
He added it was even more of an issue because of social media: “Now it is just so fragmented and so urgent and so breathless and so when do you get the time to sit and read?”
He has also argued thrillers should be on the curriculum and in school libraries. He said: “You should have whatever is compelling and whatever gets people into the habit of reading. Then you can have the fancy stuff later, of course, but don’t start with it.”
Child was speaking at HMP Doncaster, a category B prison, where he was having literacy sessions with inmates in what he said he hoped would become a national programme. Many had been put off reading at school, he said.
It was his third Doncaster visit and at the sessions the men were gripped. Each had been encouraged to write and Child listened to how it went and offered constructive feedback.
He told the men to write about themselves. “My books are about Jack Reacher but they’re really about me,” he said. “It’s what I want to be, what I want to do, how I would live if I could.”
Child at a prison literacy session at HMP Doncaster listening to an inmate’s feedback. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Guardian
Speaking later, Child said the prisoners were often people “outfaced by big works of literature” during their formal education and that everyone stood to benefit from the sessions.
He added: “Ideally, what we wanted to do was make everybody’s day a little bit easier in the prison world. Anecdotally, what we’re hearing is that if they’re reading all day or they’ve got a writing task to do, then the atmosphere is much calmer, is much more relaxed, everybody has a happier time.”
Child said he believed increasing literacy skills would help to cut reoffending rates. “Deep down, I think what every person in Britain wants is a safer community,” he said. “Wherever they are, they’d like less crime, more safety around them. That is what kicked this off. How do you do that?”
Child, who relocated to the UK from the US after the re-election of Donald Trump, also stressed the project was not about being soft on crime. “I’m not a soft-hearted person,” he said. “I’m not a do-gooder. I’m a thoroughly practical person and this is a thoroughly practical thing.”
John Butler, a prisoner taking part in the sessions, said he was enjoying them and had been writing off the back of them. As a young man he got into trouble because he was not learning at school, he said.
Lee Child and the justice minister Jake Richards (right) hope to establish a regional model for the sessions. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Guardian
Child hatched the literacy sessions plan with the Labour MP for Colne Valley, Paul Davies. Together they pitched it directly to the prisons minister, James Timpson.
So far they have been to five prisons, with Davies also hosting democracy sessions. “The proposal is to go to 20 and then establish a regional model,” said Davies. “Obviously Lee will be involved, but he’ll also be working with a lot of other key writers as well. The idea is that someone like Lee is a catalyst. He inspires people.”
Child was joined at the sessions by Jake Richards, a justice minister with responsibility for sentencing. “We sometimes forget, when we’re sitting in the MoJ [Ministry of Justice] and we look at prison numbers, that behind every single number there is a person who has committed an offence and is serving their time – and that’s right but also has real vulnerabilities and a story,” Richards said.
“Seeing what we can do to ensure that those individuals when they leave here have the skills and the confidence to contribute and not return to a life of crime is a big challenge and we’ve got a lot more work to do.”
