Why it's okay to ruin the surprise...
As we enter the festive season many parents will be buying their children books as gifts; around 10% of all print books purchased annually in the UK are bought as Christmas gifts. Book ownership has a positive impact on a wide range of reading attitudes and behaviours, and Christmas is a great opportunity to get kids owning more books. But next comes the unavoidably tricky question – what book to buy? Non-fiction titles are popular gifts at Christmas with three times as many non-fiction titles gifted compared to fiction. Non-fiction can be a great option for children as more than half of children report reading non-fiction in their free time.
If you are thinking of buying a non-fiction book for a child this Christmas, your first port of call for inspiration should be The School Library Association’s Information Book Award to find out the best non-fiction titles for children published this year. And as we have learned from this year’s winners, what an adult and a child thinks makes the best book are not the same.
Each of the three age categories has a winner decided by the judges, but also a winner decided by children all over the country who have taken part in a voting process facilitated by their school librarians.
This year, the children have made it clear that they want to read books that spark their excitement and sense of fun, choosing different winners to the judges in every age category. For younger children, Do Bears Poop in the Woods (Thames & Hudson, 2022) came out on top. Both the 8 to 12 year olds and 13 to 16 year olds opted for the supernatural, with The Big Book of Mysteries (Nosy Crow, 2022) and An Illustrated History of Ghosts (Nobrow, 2022) winning their respective categories.
Choice is a powerful element of reading enjoyment. If a child chooses a book for themselves they are more likely to enjoy reading it, with 89% of children agreeing that their favourite books are the ones they have picked out themselves, so this is something parents need to bear in mind when buying books for their children.
Even the presence of a parent in a library or bookshop affects what books a child will choose, according to Michael Norris, editor of the Book Publishing Report. “Even if a mother or father is standing with the child when the bookseller asks them what they like to read, we have found that the child will give an answer they think their parent wants to hear. It will not be the same answer they would give alone”.
This highlights the importance of school libraries in empowering children to choose books for themselves. The School Library Association works to support everyone working in school libraries to provide a safe space free from judgement where children can choose from a diverse and up to date range of books and where every child can see themselves reflected in a book.
So if you want to buy a book for a child this Christmas, why not break from tradition and ask them to choose? Is ruining the surprise really so bad if you are also empowering them to be engaged readers with all the benefits that entails?