Should we be more concerned about the literacy crisis?
Why we need to encourage young people to read
Today’s tea: Earl gray
What I’m reading: My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura
I’m concerned that people are reading less. This is something that would concern me even if I didn’t work in publishing (although that certainly contributes to it). But here in the US, my country, there’s been a significant dip in readership and it’s going to affect all of us.
I spoke briefly on the issue of book banning on my website blog, but again I feel the need to speak to an even larger issue of declining literacy rates. To work in a literary field while being simultaneously at the crux of what news outlets and institutions are calling a "literacy crisis" is a bit unfathomable, to say the least.
An overview on the literacy crisis
Most of what I’m covering primarily only applies to the US, although this extends to studies and happenings around the world at large, as according to the ILA, there are over 800+ million people worldwide who are functionally illiterate since 2015. While I do believe that number’s likely (hopefully) changed in the last decade, for that to be the reality in the modern world is a sobering thought.
As of 2026, there’s been a bevy of media pundits and journals that have been claiming there is a literacy crisis in the United States, not just because of the growing number of people in the country who are illiterate — and a disproportionate amount of whom are black, latino, or middle eastern — but also because of how drastically this affects the outlook of how information and news are perceived in the country.
Literacy improves our ability to function as a society. Which sounds like common sense, right? However, there’s been a seemingly larger disconnect between young people and reading.
Literacy is the foundation on which we build full, productive lives – as individuals, as communities, and as a nation. Yet 54% of U.S. adults read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level, and 64% of our country’s fourth graders do not read proficiently. This multigenerational challenge impacts all of us, and it is linked to some of today’s most pressing concerns, from economic growth and public health to community safety and civic engagement.
Why literacy matters
Literacy is about a lot more than just reading and comprehension of course, it extends to critical thinking, fact-checking, and verifying sources.
Remember when Donald Trump, a two-time president-elect, said during a national live debate that Haitians were eating people’s dogs and cats without a verified source? Or remember the time Skip Bayless went on live TV and made a meme-worthy statement about James Harden based on an internet troll’s obviously fake tweet? These are grown ass men.
Literacy affects everybody — I mean I’d be remiss to say nothing gets by me. I’ve been guilty of sharing a news article or two without fully verifying if it were true or not, and I’ve been even guiltier of underestimating just how much it matters. We’re morons-in-recovery but we become better truth-seekers as a result of it.
Last September, I was very fortunate and humbled to be a member of the American Association of Literary Agents special committee that put together the inaugural AALA People of Publishing Conference.
The conference itself kicked off with an opening panel featuring some of the top CEOs in the Publishing world, including Jon Karp of Simon & Schuster, David Shelley of Hachette Book Group, and Jon Yaged of Macmillan, who each briefly discussed the necessity of connecting the younger generation with books.
“If you’re reading at grade level […] the chance for you to have success in life, the chance for you to become an analytical thinker, [a] critical thinker, that makes you grow into a strong participant in democracy, is fundamental. It’s not an accident that there’s organized efforts to stop it. Because the freer thinkers we have, the less chances there are for autocracy to survive and thrive.” - Jon Yaged, CEO of Macmillan
The fruits of literature
Now, I briefly discussed digital reading vs physical reading in a previous newsletter about publishing’s volume issue and inevitability of more and more backlist titles going out of print, but I remain suspicious that the reason for the literacy decline may be related to the overreliance on technology.
There have been numerous studies that have emphasized the physiological advantages of reading a print book, from improving memory and decreasing risk of impairment, to also increasing the longevity of life. Oh, and the best part about reading books? There’s no ads.
But beyond, reading ultimately serves much greater functions as fulfilling a richness in our lives. Reading fiction can be a mode of escapism, or entertainment, or give us characters we relate to and aspire towards. Non-fiction is a mode of staying informed, give us insights into humanities, and make us wiser for it.
How can we fix this?
Community. Reading with children. Reading in public. Little free libraries. Open readings. Book fairs. Becoming volunteers. There are so many organizations that help schools get more books, more funding, more tutors. I’m a patron of BeyondLit here in Philadelphia, and try to take part in local readings at the free libraries or poetry readings in local bookstores, and that’s just a small part of what I can do.
We all know the fruits of literature, but then why is it deteriorating so steadily before our very eyes? There’s a great article by The Geeky Leader on this subject, that most of it has to do with nature vs. nurture.
“If you grow up in a household where there are books, where you are read to, where parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins read for their own pleasure, naturally you learn to read. If no one close to you takes joy in reading, where is the evidence that it's worth the effort?”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
No one is born knowing how to read, it’s all about upbringing and the environment you’re surrounded with, so I say, let’s surround kids with books. We need to focus on building a culture predicated on reading. It’s something we used to that we stopped because of — gestures vaguely — life and modern society.
Maybe there’s a silent judgement from those around us, or perhaps the distraction of social media and phones, or maybe it’s a growing lack of patience from the gradual cultural shift to fast, short-form media.
I think too many folks get told that reading books is pretentious or performative, or some folks get intimidated by reading books north of 400 some-odd pages or by reading older classics or are overwhelmed by the amount of books out there. And I get it, but at the end of the day, I don’t care what someone reads, I just care that they read. We can deal with the contents later, because if folks aren’t at all, that to me seems much more pressing.
I think what we should tell our youth more than anything right now is that reading books is cool. It’s beyond cool. It’s the most badass, sexiest thing you can do in a world where people are being consumed by recycled content and AI slop. It starts with community. It starts with kids.
Well observed. I had a discussion with a friend recently about what I see as a paradox. On one hand, there’s evidence that people are reading less, attention spans are getting shorter, and functional illiteracy especially among younger people, is on the rise. On the other hand, there are more books being published than ever, new authors emerging constantly, and bookstores appear to be thriving. So, I wonder: who is reading all these books?
What prompted me to start this discussion is this short documentary. It is in Dutch but I hope you can follow it with subtitles. https://youtu.be/CETdRAO2RNk?si=CCInHFZ_ATnka2RH
I know it’s great that there are no ads, but by far the best thing about a physical copy of a book is that you can hold it, touch it, hug it, cherish it, and actually own it.