Best of 2023: zombies in the library and finding the right book — growing a nation of readers
Ben Brown, our first Te Awhi Rito Reading Ambassador for children and young people, has been succeeded by Alan Dingley. While their backgrounds and experiences are different, their love of reading — and belief in the power of the written word to help young New Zealanders write their own stories — unites them.
They talk with Dionne Christian about growing a nation of readers and about why, for a screen-obsessed generation, there’s nothing like finding a good book.
Zombies in libraries? Rappers teaching poetry? Ask Alan Dingley and Ben Brown what will keep young New Zealanders reading for pleasure and they’re not short of suggestions, which might seem unconventional to some. But Dingley and Brown have had more opportunity than most to talk with rangatahi about books, reading and why they do – or do not – find it enjoyable.
Writer, performance poet and publisher Brown (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Koroki, Ngāti Paoa) recently ended his two-year term as Aotearoa’s inaugural Te Awhi Rito Reading Ambassador for children and young people; Dingley, a librarian from Palmerston North, succeeds him.
The role involves being a “national reading role model,” travelling across the motu to increase the visibility and awareness of reading. Also integral is ensuring our own stories and literature, including in te reo Māori and other languages which reflect our culturally diverse population, are promoted. It is a Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa National Library of New Zealand initiative, with partners including Te Puna Foundation, Read New Zealand To Pou Muramura, Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa and Storylines Children’s Literature Trust Te Whare Waituhi Tamariki o Aotearoa.
During his tenure, Brown visited schools and kura, events and celebrations, and shared stories and highlighted connections between storytelling, reading aloud and reading. Dingley, at the beginning of his term, is still figuring out how best to make the role work but after 25 years as a librarian, he’s got impressive credentials and, reported Stuff, “an encyclopaedic knowledge of books.” He helped judge the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults in 2020 and, in 2021, was a convenor of judges.
“Semi-embarrassingly I struggled to study; I had two attempts at teachers’ college and failed both times but one thing I was good at was people and working with children,” says Dingley, a father of two.
That led to work as a special needs teacher aide at Monrad Intermediate in Palmerston North. When the school librarian left, he told the principal ‘I can do that,’ and found himself building its resources and learning all he could about finding the “right book” in the hands of readers. Then he became Youth Librarian at Palmerston North’s Youth Space where one of his most triumphant encourage-kids-to-read events involved a zombie siege.
“We got some kids in and said, ‘we’re going to do a zombie strategy game and we’re going to talk about zombie books and chat’ but then, about half an hour in, some actors came to the windows, splattering blood, so the kids and I had to plot our way to escape into the main library but it all turned to custard because there were two doors and the group got separated. There were three floors so it became a hide ‘n’ seek zombie thing. It was amazing.
“I’m a big fan of those experiences where you make a book come to life. There’s a great book by Max Brookes called The Zombie Survival Guide so I do classes with kids where we talk about, ‘what would we do if it happened?’
‘What would you do if you were in The Hunger Games – what would be your weapon of your skill?’ ‘If you went to Hogwarts, what would be your favourite subject?’ You put them in that book!”
It was a perfect match for Dingley’s other great love, improv and theatre sports. He’s part of a group called Spontaneous, winners of the TheatreSports Nationals in 2017 and 2018.
“I’m lucky that in my other lives I am an improvisor and a performer so I have no problem putting myself out there. Improvisation keeps my brain sharp. That could, hopefully, set me in good stead if we do go through the social media…”
Te Awhi Rito has a website which Dingley’s blogging on but he has a valid point about social media. A recent report out of the United Kingdom and Ireland found the number of books read by youngsters increased by almost a quarter last year thanks to TikTok and other social media trends. Since 2018, the video-sharing app TikTok has allowed users to create and share short videos about any topic, including books.
That’s led to the rise – and rise – of BookTok where avid readers share their thoughts on their favourite reads. Researchers behind the What Kids Are Reading report surveyed some 1.3 million secondary school pupils and found they read 27,265,657 books in the 2021-2022 academic year, 24 per cent more than the 2020-2021 academic year.
Dingley’s introduction to reading was more conventional. He says his grandfather, Ernie Mawson, was his “reading role model” and recalls many enjoyable summers at Woodend Beach, near Christchurch, sitting reading together. Ernie also introduced his grandson to wordplay, through the likes of Spike Milligan and The Goon Show.
“I learnt that words had a different life as well. I struggled socially a little bit when I was younger so books were my friends.”
Reading role models – and rap
Likewise, Brown says he’s long been attracted to snappy rhymes and acknowledges if he’d been a bit younger – the father of two is in his sixties – he may have been a rapper.
“There is something in the meter, that rhythm; I love it and I think it’s great. I like the real rootsy rap when they’re talking about real issues. I’ve gigged with bands and stuff like that and quite often they say, ‘oh, you’re the poet – you must hate rap.’ And I’m like, ‘what are you talking about? I love it.’
“They hear one kind of rap and think that’s rap. Yes, there’s the stuff that doesn’t really talk about much and they dance around and wear silly clothes, big rings, but they’re not saying anything. A lot of the first rap that I heard, they were talking about hard stuff and that’s why I like New Zealand rap because in a lot of it, they’re talking about hard things, hard scrabble and I love it, I think it’s legitimate. There are some good lyrics out there.”
Brown also had strong reading and storytelling models in his home. He grew up on a tobacco farm near Motueka where both parents liked spinning a yarn and his dad, in particular, was an avid reader who would have two – three books on the go at any one time.
“We didn’t have bookshelves, we just had stacks everywhere,” recalls Brown. “My dad was a library man and he bought books; there was always a book on the bedside table. Dad loved telling stories and mum would tell stories when she was doing things.
“We had a big harakeke bush at the end of our lawn and she would make things, every year, for the farm. She would make practical things; she would make baskets, mats. She was good. She made me a bullwhip when I was a kid and it turned out to be the best thing I ever had. When she would do that traditional stuff, she would tell stories about it.”
Brown remembers his dad “ragging on” him all summer to read Tom Sawyer. “Once you were 10 in my house, things got serious – you had to pull your weight and learn life skills,” he says.
“Dad wanted me to read this book and I was like, ‘nah, I’m too busy.’ But the thing with it was it was like the first real book, a novel-sized book, a hardcover, a big old thing. He threw it at me one day and it donked me on the head so I thought I better read it and I fell in love with it straight away. It was about a kid just like me.”
“The first chapter, he’s trying to bunk off a job so that was me! He lived on a river; he had a raft and that was me. I lived on a river; I had a raft and me and my mate used to raid other kids’ rafts but it was set in this whole other context but I could relate to it because the kid was just like me. I loved it and I read everything that Mark Twain did after that. The next one was Huckleberry Finn and that was whole next level so those two books opened up the world for me.”
Finding the right book
Dingley, who moved to Palmerston North Intermediate to be its librarian and has recently been appointed Community Librarian at Te Pātikitiki Library in Highbury, Palmerston North, says hooking young people into reading is a matter of putting the right book into their hands
For boys who are reluctant readers, he recommends a number of more humorous children’s books and while adults might not always see the humour, he says kids are often amused and intrigued enough to trust his recommendations and move onto more advanced content.
Again, it’s a sentiment Brown agrees with. Reluctant readers, especially those in remedial lessons, often complain that they’re not reading “this shit” because, he says, it’s not relevant to them and their lives.
“They aren’t interested unless it had been put together in such a way or was structed in a certain way that could capture their imaginations. They will build language structures, so just give the kid some rap. They respond to rap, to freestyle spelling – throw the rulebook out and just let them engage.”
He saw this firsthand during January 2020, before he accepted the Te Awhi Rito role, when he worked with 28 young people living in Te Puna Wai o Tūhinapo, the Oranga Tamariki youth justice residence next to Rolleston Prison near Christchurch.
“So many of those kids sat there and said, ‘I can’t write, I can’t spell.’ I said, ‘I don’t care if you can’t write, just make a symbol and I will figure it out.’ For me, the first thing that language is about is communicating, getting a message to each other, and I don’t care how you send it. In some cases, given the context, it’s far better that they just do in raw and just lay it out. In their context, they might never need the “rules” but they do need to be able to communicate some of their needs, some of their feelings and there are times in their lives when they have to do that and just allowing them to do that the way they want to do it is kind of empowering.
“One thing I learnt real fast is that you don’t go in there and make it look like a formal learning environment. You have to go into their space, acknowledge it is their space and get down to their level – and I don’t mean down in a moral way, you sit around the table and you talk for a while.”
The result was 106 page poetry book, published by The Cuba Press, where the rangatahi answered a question Brown put to them: ‘How the fuck did I get here?’ He worked with the young men for four days involving much kōrero and collaboration, tautoko and awhi. All but one produced work, including illustrations, that made it into the book.
When they asked what was in it for them, Brown told them the only thing he could give them was the satisfaction of knowing that their book might go into a school and a 15 year old sitting there thinking about bunking out and doing the same as what they’d done might read it and make different choices, informed decisions.
“I expected that most of the stuff I would get back would be blame, down on cops, down of this and that – and I got that – but a lot of it was regretful, a lot of it was hopeful and they talked about what they wish they could be doing. There was a lot of regret, a lot of attitude, too, but you could see where the attitude came from.
“You make your choices based on your context, your experience and how your moral compass has been set as you’re growing up and if you’re growing up in a world where it’s okay to see mum get beaten and dad get wasted and it’s just a constant, well, your moral compass is screwed.”
Brown’s not naïve enough to believe reading is a universal panacea, but he knows that talking about books and writing, as he did in Te Puna Wai o Tūhinapo, leads to conversations which cause young people to start to think outside of themselves.
“The message I finally settled on with kids was ‘try to look at yourself as this work in progress, you’re a narrator and there are narratives going on all around you,’ and if you can get that idea into your head, you’re setting ownership of your own story and if you can own your own stories, it implies you have control of the outcome.
“There are others who will interact with your story, it’s just a useful piece of advice to try to get to grips with the world around you especially when the world around you is starting to look pretty complicated. I really feel for kids these days, there’s a sense that there’s not enough time for stuff – everything has to be done bang, bang.”
Ask Dingley why is it important for kids to read, he says it’s about imagination, fluency, being articulate and able to express yourself “especially in New Zealand where we’re not, especially us men, we’re not good communicators.
“Even though life is on screens a lot these days, you still have to read everything that is on that screen. There are little things we do every single day and we don’t even realise that we are reading. It’s automatic and the more you read, the more automatic it is for you to decipher all these things that are going on.
“It’s an escape, a book is either a mirror or a doorway and that was me when I was young; it was an escape. My mum was quite ill and I wasn’t great socially so books became my escape. I could go to the library for free and I spent so many days, especially in the holidays, just sitting in this little corner of the Havelock North Private Library and every time I go back to that town, I go back to that seat and I was so lucky that there was a library there.
“I think library degrees these days should have elements of social work in them because libraries are becoming the only free resource that people are welcomed into these days. I believe that libraries should be people focused first and that goes for school libraries, too, because if you can connect with the children coming through the door first and foremost, they will keep coming back.”
