How can I help someone fall in love with reading? with Nadia Shireen and Jonathan Douglas

Ask Penguin

Host Rhianna Dillon sits down with Jonathan Douglas CBE and Nadia Shireen to discuss the upcoming 2026 National Year of Reading and its 'Go Al

Key takeaways

Reading for pleasure among children has dropped from the mid-50%s to 32% recently.
Jonathan Douglas notes that literacy is a primary fault line for social inequality, citing life expectancy gaps between Stockton Town Centre and North Oxford.
The 'Go All In' campaign focuses on connecting reading to existing interests like football, music, or well-being rather than just preaching literature.
Nadia Shireen emphasizes the importance of visual literacy and how comics can serve as an empowering entry point for children.
The National Literacy Trust aims to generate 100,000 reading volunteers as part of their social action efforts.

Main topics

National Year of Reading 2026
Literacy and social inequality
The Go All In campaign

Notable quotes

Reading for pleasure is a massive driver of social mobility.

Conclusion

The episode serves as an inspiring call to action to reclaim reading a

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) Hello and welcome back to Ask Penguin. I'm Rhianna Dillon. Ask Penguin is the podcast that's all about celebrating books, authors and our collective love of reading. This is a particularly special episode for us because 2026 is the National Year of Reading. Now you might have seen some of the Go All In campaign online already and this episode we're going to dive in and find out more about what this brilliant mission is all about from some of the people involved. Joining me in the studio is Jonathan Douglas, CBE, Chief Executive of the National Literacy Trust, and illustrator, author and National Year of Reading Ambassador, Nadia Shireen. Nadia has written and illustrated celebrated picture books, including The Bumble Bear, Barbara Throws a Wobbler and The Grimwood Series. Her debut book, Good Little Wolf, won the UKLA Book Award, and she's been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. Nadia has also been the writer-illustrator in residence at Book Trust. Nadia, Jonathan, welcome to the podcast. Speaker 3 (1:05) Great to be here. Thank Speaker 2 (1:05) you for having us. Jonathan, can you explain what the National Literacy Trust does? Speaker 3 (1:09) Yeah, so we're a charity that... We're actually obsessed by the relationship between social inequality and literacy. So when you look across the nations of the world, the fault line in terms of equality in every society is the fault line around literacy. So those on the right side have got... high levels of literacy. Those on the wrong side have got low levels of literacy. And it's different in different countries. So in many of the states in India, it's about gender. In France, it's frequently about former French colonial communities. In this country, it's around class, social background. And so our job is really about how we can address social inequality through literacy. Speaker 2 (1:49) So on this podcast, we've been talking a lot about the National Year of Reading. That's good. I promise, every episode. But why has 2026 been designated the National Year of Reading? Speaker 3 (1:59) Yeah, so we do a lot of research. And last year, our research showed that the number of kids reading for pleasure had dropped to 32%. And that is massive from mid 50s just before the pandemic. So, you know, it's a really and it's mirrored in other research about adult reading as well. And, you know, I say that we're about social equality. And the extraordinary thing is that reading for pleasure is a massive driver of social mobility. So it's actually more important in terms of where you end up in terms of your education. So your final attainment. your parents' education background. So it breaks that pattern of intergenerational poverty. So, you know, reading for pleasure is really, really important, dropping off. So we persuaded the government that actually this was not simply a crisis for those of us who love books, but actually a crisis for society. When you look across the country, the place with the lowest levels of literacy is Stockton Town Centre. The highest levels of literacy is North Oxford. Life expectancy for males born in those two communities is a gap of 24 years. So this isn't just about wonderful cultural experiences. This is about equality in society. This is about people's ability to get jobs. This is about people's ability to make good health care decisions, all those kind of things. So we said, look, we need to address this. So we persuaded... Bridget Philipson, who's the Secretary of State for Education, we persuaded several key members of the government that actually they needed to highlight this. And they agreed. And so they said, well, we will work with you, the charity sector. So we brought together Speaker 1 (3:35) 50 charities, 50 charities, who've Speaker 3 (3:37) got an interest in reading to form a coalition. We've worked with all the libraries, all the schools in the country. doing all sorts of extraordinary things, but it's a year to really recover the national reading culture because it's a wonderful thing, but also because we know it would be a platform for all sorts of incredible things in terms of the way society needs to function. Speaker 2 (3:56) Have we had a national year of reading before? Speaker 3 (3:58) Yeah. So this is the embarrassing thing. So a couple... Not just because it... Yeah, not just because we've got another one, but because I've been involved in all three. Speaker 2 (4:09) Oh. Yeah, Speaker 3 (4:10) all three. And I was actually... hauled into the Select Committee, the Education Select Committee in the Houses of Parliament recently, because I think I'm the only person alive who has actually worked on all three. So the first one was in 1998 and it was David Blunkett. Do you remember David Blunkett? And actually I saw him recently and he referred to that year of reading as being the high point of his professional career. It was an amazing, it was like this kind of very positive moment after... Blair got in when everything seemed possible and the world was changing. Speaker 2 (4:44) And Speaker 3 (4:45) they decided that they wanted education, education, education to be kind of the key theme. So the year of reading, the first year of reading in 98 was like a platform to make that happen. It was to awaken the nation's consciousness to the power of education and the joys of reading. Then there was another one, which Ed Balls, who was a very decent Secretary of State for Education before he went on to Strictly. Speaker 3 (5:09) He had a National Year of Reading in 2008, which was about how kids who were having problems with reading could really be brought on board with school standards and so forth. So this is the third one. And this is very different in scope because this isn't about education. This isn't about kids who are failing. This is about society, everybody recovering a love of reading. This time we're working with everybody from the Premier League to Meta, from Spotify. We are trying to get to those places where we know people who don't read will be Speaker 2 (5:45) and Speaker 3 (5:46) get them engaged in reading in those places. Speaker 2 (5:48) So Nadia, what made you say yes to becoming an ambassador for the National Year of Reading? Speaker 1 (5:55) It was Speaker 2 (5:55) a Speaker 1 (5:55) no brainer, really. I mean, I've been lucky enough to work with the NLT a bit as a visiting author over the years and turn up to all the nice events. You've Speaker 2 (6:02) done Speaker 1 (6:02) so Speaker 2 (6:03) well. Speaker 1 (6:04) So I know, you know, over that period of time, I get to hear, you know, Jonathan speaks so eloquently, but you get to pick up bits of information about the situation we're in. And then you add to that, you know, the double whammy of austerity and the pandemic. No wonder we need an exceptional response. And I think I have travelled around, I've gone into schools, I meet the kids who read my books, which is amazing. But you do also see the different kind of world they're living in. And it just boiled down to, well, how lucky to be given the opportunity to be part of a solution. I'm not suggesting it's the solution, but... If you're going to be on either side of the fence, I always want to be on that side. So, yeah, it was a very easy decision. So Speaker 2 (6:48) what else does being an ambassador entail? So going to schools, but what kind of events have you worked on? Quacking on a lot. No, just getting out there and Speaker 1 (6:57) talking about it to anyone who will listen, I think, which I'm always happy to do because it's easy if you believe in it. And yeah, going into schools, meeting kids. In them, you can't sort of sit down with kids and go, well, it's been a tough few years, kids. That's not really going to work. But I like to go in and enthuse, hopefully, about books and drawing and all that kind of stuff and just get them excited. When I go into schools, I actually don't read, which sounds a bit counterintuitive. I stand up and we just chat and I tell them about my life and I show them my cats and we do some drawing and I tell them about the characters in my books. And I maybe outline what might happen and I get them to shout out things. And then when they leave, they're Speaker 2 (7:40) a Speaker 1 (7:40) bit fired up. Speaker 2 (7:40) And Speaker 1 (7:41) often that's when they'll go, let's read it now, you know, if their class gets a book and then they get into it. So that's part of what I do. So I'm just doing that kind of writ large as an ambassador, I think. Yeah, no, it's great fun. Speaker 2 (7:56) And Jonathan, what does it mean to go all in, which I know is sort of like the tagline for this? Speaker 3 (8:01) Yes. So our big challenge was, so, you know, the year of reading is happening in many spaces. It's happening in schools, as Nadia's saying. It's happening in communities, it's happening in libraries, it's happening on socials. And we wanted to have a really compelling marketing message at the heart of it. So we looked at things like, you know, social marketing in the health space and social marketing in financial services, how you get people to take more vitamins or how you get people to save more money for their pensions. And learnt from actually what works in terms of behaviour change in those places. And one of the key things was you need a really strong, compelling sales pitch for what you're trying to do. And trying to get people to read if they don't want to read. Just screaming at people, read! Is it perhaps not going to work? So why do people read? And Speaker 2 (8:50) the Speaker 3 (8:50) majority of people read... for content as much as, in fact, more likely for content than the act of reading itself. So, you know, you will read because you're excited to read the work of a new author, or you'll read because somebody suggested something, or you read because you're passionate about finding more out about the Beatles or about The Clash or whatever it is. Speaker 2 (9:11) So Speaker 3 (9:12) the idea actually of reading for content, so the proposition for the year of reading is go all into the things you love. Speaker 2 (9:19) Whether Speaker 3 (9:20) it is music or whether it is football or whether it is actually your well-being or being a better mum or whatever it is that really is absolutely... Go all into that thing that is your ambition and your heartbeat by reading. So we're not trying to... We're trying to sell reading as a way into fulfilling your potential. So go all in is the message of the year. Speaker 2 (9:43) I love that. And what do you both think is the future of storytelling? Because you're saying you don't necessarily need to read your books out in class. We all know the impact that smartphones are having on not just younger generations, but all of us. Speaker 1 (10:00) So, Speaker 2 (10:01) yeah, what do you believe is the future of storytelling? I think Speaker 1 (10:03) storytelling has always been multifaceted. I mean, it's all, you know, oral storytelling is kind of our foundation, isn't Speaker 2 (10:09) it, as Speaker 1 (10:09) human beings? And I think it's really important to just let... all of those different ways of storytelling exist. One doesn't have to threaten the other. Speaker 2 (10:17) So Speaker 1 (10:18) I listen to audio books. I use an e-reader. Speaker 2 (10:20) I Speaker 1 (10:21) make picture books and I read picture books, you know, so I enjoy splashing around in all those different pools of storytelling and they don't have to take away. I'm all about, you know, I believe in abundance and abundance of storytelling is great. And so we can just encourage that. Maybe some people might have. an idea in their head that they're not allowed to or that listening to an audio book isn't proper reading. I'm so Speaker 2 (10:46) glad you mentioned that because it comes up time and again more with people saying... Yeah, I don't know where we got that from but we've Speaker 1 (10:51) got Speaker 2 (10:51) it from somewhere, haven't we? Yes. Speaker 3 (10:52) I mean, the danger is there are all sorts of implicit hierarchies in culture and particularly in the act of reading. And so one kind of reading perceived by some people as being better than the other and the big message of the year of reading is that... all reading is reading. And that's so liberating because as soon as you identify yourself as a reader, the work of my charity is predominantly in communities with really low levels of literacy. Somewhere like North Ormsby in Middlesbrough, 40 % of the adult population is functionally illiterate. And also really high levels of poverty. And the big challenge in many of those places is people... just don't associate themselves with reading either because of their skills, because it's just not the kind of thing which people like us do. And turning that on its head is the most powerful way. And I think the two techniques for that, first of all, is by saying, you know, actually, if you are reading the