Ask young people what they think of reading and they will tell you that books are often just something they must study, particularly when they get to secondary school. Studies show that young people’s attitudes to reading have shifted – they do it less for pleasure and see it more as a chore to be completed in English lessons and occasionally in form times, where they read a book chosen by the school or MAT for ‘enrichment’. It is a sad indictment; books are more than objects to be studied. They influence the way in which young people see the world, fostering empathy, nurturing a sense of place and belonging, shaping moral reasoning and enhancing social understanding. When we recognise this is the case, it is more important than ever to ensure that young people have access to diverse literature positioned not as an extra, or as a trend, but as an educational necessity in our plural society.

A rich mix of literary voices

When I say ‘diverse’ literature, I mean just that - the canon remains important, tinged as it is with the social mores of a different time. Literature that reflects different experiences, cultures and perspectives, provides an important worldview. It provides voice and perspective. It is not for representation purposes alone – a mistake many make when arguing that we do not need specific books to reflect our school populations. Representation is only one aspect of the books we choose to put in front of our students and pupils. It is also to provide an accurate window into the world in its messy and highly complex nature. The aim should be for meaningful integration of diverse literature in our curricula and libraries.

In our fractured and fractious society, literature shapes how young people understand and experience the world, helping them to imagine lives beyond their own experience in the past and present. A beautiful side effect of a rich mix of literary voices is the fostering of empathy and critical thinking. When we read a story about someone different from our own experience, we are compelled to see characters as individuals, not as homogenous groups. They become a name, a person with feelings. They are humanised and real. This empathy combats the simplistic and stereotyped views of people we haven’t encountered in our daily lives. It also helps those who share those characteristics to calibrate themselves in this world we live in.

We can do that in several ways. When we read migration narratives alongside British classics, we can tell more than one story. When we read disability through authentic disabled voices, characters become multi-dimensional, not steeped in the usual narrative of pity or scorn. Dr Rudine Sims Bishop posed this possibility through her metaphor of literature being windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors. It holds true. We see ourselves, we see each other and we can step out of our comfort zones and be somewhere else, in the story and reality.

Painting a positive picture

All too often, young people see themselves reflected in texts in deficit narratives. This is the Of Mice and Men problem. Yes, there is Black representation in the text. But it is steeped in powerlessness, lack of agency and misery that never resolves for Crooks. We see Jewish characters in Holocaust texts who are decentred or vilified. We see women only in light of their relationships with male protagonists, often reinforcing old patriarchal narratives that women are dangerous and weak. It is worth asking whether our students ever see traditionally marginalised characters encountering joy, complexity, humour, love and ordinary life - characters who have function and relevance outside of their marginalised identity.

Transforming the bookshelf

Despite changes to the publishing landscape, the traditional classroom bookshelf remains white, male, middle class and western in focus. Even though we are increasingly aware of how power structures have shaped the choices of texts in our curricula, this centring remains problematic because it systematically excludes voices that have never held power in our society. The traditional canon doesn’t allow for the questions: who has been excluded? What perspectives do students rarely encounter? I have never advocated for the total erasure of canonical texts, instead choosing to ask how texts function in conversation with each other. How William Shakespeare can coexist with contemporary global voices and how a curriculum can expand without abandoning what is deemed to be our literary heritage. Literature has never been neutral and never will be.

Partly, the reason for seeing texts in conversation with each other is to ensure that young people are not just consuming texts passively. If we are truly to encourage debate and critical literacy, we need more than one worldview represented on our syllabi. We need to give them materials that enable them to engage in debate about colonial narratives in adventure fiction, gender expectations in fairy tales, villain-coding people with disabilities and how the idea of civilisation is reinforced by classic texts. So, yes, we need canonical texts, but we also need to support teachers and students in how to ask nuanced questions about those texts.

The risk of not expanding young people’s literary diets is real. Through limited exposure to multiple perspectives, we reinforce the idea that only some lives are worthy of literature, creating cultural blind spots and leaving students less prepared for the society they live in and will work in.

A classroom bookshelf should be carefully curated to include the contemporary and the canonical, filled with own voice authors and stories that go beyond suffering and trauma. It might include graphic novels, verse novels, translated literature and contemporary fiction.

Collaboration is key

I know it’s not easy to transform the bookshelf into something of beauty. There are challenges in teacher confidence, teacher nervousness about ‘getting it wrong’ andthe usual restrictions that come with budget limitations, planning time constraints and fear of community resistance. This transformation means engaging in professional dialogue, collaborating with those who have experience of making this shift successfully and leveraging the expertise of librarians and English hubs. It is also important to engage with student voice. The work of Professor Teresa Cremin tells us that if we never ask students what they want to read, how can those students ever become volitional readers?

The goal is always to reaffirm that books help shape ourselves and the society we live in. We must widen the conversation about what books we read, recommend and deem valuable. It is important to help children decode the text they are reading and become proficient in the analysis of language. But we also have the opportunity to help them decode the world, and exist in it thoughtfully, ethically and imaginatively. How lucky we are.
 

• Bishop, Rudine Sims. “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, vol. 6, no. 3, 1990.
• Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. Reflecting Realities: Survey of Ethnic Representation within UK Children’s Literature. CLPE, 2023,
  CLPE Reflecting Realities Reports.
•  Cremin, Teresa, et al. Building Communities of Engaged Readers: Reading for Pleasure. Routledge, 2014.
• Cremin, Teresa. Reading Teachers = Reading Pupils: Why Schools Must Create Readers. Routledge, 2022.
• National Literacy Trust. Children and Young People’s Reading in 2024. National Literacy Trust, 2024,National Literacy Trust Research Reports.