Seminar

THE CHILD AND THE BOOK – PERSPECTIVES ON YOUNG PEOPLE'S READING

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Reports of a literacy crisis affecting children and young people, from preschool to university level, were coming in almost daily. At the same time, a multitude of reading promotion initiatives had been launched in recent years.

The seminar “The Child and the Book” discussed children’s and young people’s reading in light of the current situation in Sweden, while also adopting important historical perspectives. The reading habits of children and young people have always sparked engagement and debate. A significant part of children’s reading took place in school, in the classroom, and in staffed school libraries (where such existed).

Several lectures therefore focused on the role of schools and their mission to teach children how to read. We took a closer look at how the national curricula had changed over the years in relation to fiction and took a comprehensive view of recent governments’ literacy initiatives. We learned how reading acquisition can work when Swedish is not one’s native language, or when a student struggles with dyslexia. Several of the presentations also addressed various aspects of the digital realm.

“The Child and the Book” also aimed to highlight the child’s perspective and the joy of reading, which lies at the heart of all literary experience. We heard children’s book authors share their thoughts on literature and reading, researchers who spoke about reading poetry aloud with children, and about the enthusiasts who, around the turn of the last century, launched the influential Children’s Library Saga under the motto “Only the best is good enough for children.” The seminar was also connected to an anthology titled The Child and the Book: Perspectives on Young People’s Reading.

Introduction

STINA OTTERBERG ENGDAHL

PhD in Comparative Literature

Block I – History and the Present

LENA KÅRELAND

Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, Uppsala University

ANN BOGLIND

Senior Lecturer in Didactics of the Swedish Subject, University of Gothenburg

LINNEA LINDQUIST

Deputy Principal and Public Debater

Block II – Skills and Challenges

MARIA LIM FALK

Senior Lecturer at the Department of Swedish Language and Multilingualism, Stockholm University

TOMAS RIAD

Professor of Nordic Languages, Stockholm University, Member of the Swedish Academy

FILIPPA MANNERHEIM

Upper Secondary School Teacher in Swedish and History

BJÖRN SJÖDÉN

PhD in Cognitive Science, Senior Lecturer in Educational Sciences, Halmstad University

MATS MYRBERG

Professor Emeritus in Special Education, Stockholm University

Block III – Usefulness and Pleasure

GUNILLA KINDSTRAND

Critic and Writer

LOTTA OLSSON

Literary Critic

MICHAEL WIANDER

Author

MATILDA GYLLENBERG

Author and Journalist