来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2023年3月3日
Anxieties about children and reading are not unusual, but news that fewer than half of those aged between eight and 18 admit to actually enjoying it – the lowest level since 2005 – should raise a red flag. The survey, conducted by the National Literacy Trust, also revealed a worrying picture of growing inequality.
对孩子和阅读的担忧并不罕见，但有消息称，8岁至18岁的青少年中只有不到一半的人承认自己喜欢阅读，这是自2005年以来的最低水平，这应该敲响了警钟。这项由英国国家识字信托基金会开展的调查还揭示了日益加剧的不平等现象，这也令人担忧。
One in 10 of 3,000 parents and carers interviewed across the UK said they were too stressed to read to their child because of economic pressures, doubling to nearly one in five among those who described themselves as struggling financially. Meanwhile, 20% said they were spending less on books for their children as a result of the cost of living crisis, rising to 36% among those in financial difficulty.
在英国接受采访的3000名家长和看护者中，十分之一的人表示，由于经济压力，他们压力太大，无法读书给孩子听，在那些自称经济困难的人中，这一比例翻了一番，接近五分之一。与此同时，20%的人表示，由于生活成本危机，他们为孩子买书的花费减少了，在经济困难的人群中，这一比例上升到36%。
This gap was thrown into sharp relief by sales data for the last year, released by market analysts Nielsen BookScan, which revealed a 15% increase in the overall number of children’s books sold compared with 2019. If poorer families are spending less of the £445m invested in children’s reading, it follows that richer ones must be investing more.
市场分析公司尼尔森图书扫描发布的去年销售数据突显了这一差距，数据显示，与2019年相比，儿童图书的总销量增长了15%。投资在孩子阅读上的4.45亿英镑中，如果较贫穷的家庭支出较少，那么较富裕的家庭肯定投资更多。
So what is to be done? At a time of financial stress, libraries have a key role to play. A welcome sign that they are doing so came with borrowing figures for last year. For the first time in 14 years, a children’s author – Julia Donaldson – topped the lending charts, with five others in the top 10. Libraries are where children of all ages go to choose books for themselves, as opposed to bookshops, where parental budgets, and tastes, inevitably impinge.
那么该怎么办呢？在财务紧张的时候，图书馆发挥着关键作用。去年的借阅数据显示，图书馆正在发挥作用，这是一个可喜的迹象。儿童作家茱莉亚·唐纳森14年来首次荣登借阅榜榜首，其他5位儿童作家也跻身借阅榜前十名。图书馆是各个年龄段的孩子为自己选择书籍的地方，而在书店则不可避免地会受到父母预算和品味的影响。
This is why the borrowable book is such an important part of the reading ecology. Yet libraries have long been in the frontline of cuts to public services, and those in schools have fared worst of all. While prisons in the UK are legally obliged to have libraries, primary schools are not. The result, according to one survey, is that one in seven have no library space at all.
这就是为什么可借阅的书是阅读生态中如此重要的一部分。然而，图书馆长期以来一直处于公共服务削减的前沿，而学校图书馆的情况最为糟糕。虽然英国的监狱在法律上必须有图书馆，但小学却没有这样的强制规定。根据一项调查，七分之一的小学根本没有图书馆空间。
As children’s laureate in 2021, the author Cressida Cowell wrote an open letter to the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, calling for a ringfenced annual investment of £100m a year in primary school libraries. Her demand should be taken seriously, as it directly addresses the needs of children most badly affected by the cost of living crisis.
作为2021年的儿童文学奖得主，作家克蕾西达·考威尔给时任首相鲍里斯·约翰逊写了一封公开信，呼吁对小学图书馆每年投资1亿英镑。她的要求应该被认真对待，因为它直接解决了受生活成本危机影响最严重的儿童的需求。