Summary of talk given by Tim & Chris Cross at the Reading
is FUNdamental National Development Day, London, 1 July 2002 New approaches to motivating young people to read:
some thoughts from the cool-reads team
Introduction
For many of our friends, it's ok to talk about what you saw on TV, or
computer games, or films but you keep quiet about reading. It's definitely not
cool to be seen as somebody who reads a lot. It's quite cool to have a website,
though, especially one that people go to, so we don't get too much grief from
our friends about being book-freaks.
It would be nice to say that we started cool-reads because we wanted to make
it more ok to young people to talk about books they had read but it wouldn't
really be true. The idea for the website came together one summer when we were a
bit bored and wanted something to do. We have both always read a lot and could
never seemed to be able to find enough good books to read. We also like doing
stuff on the computer and so the idea of a review site came together.
It is difficult for us to say how successful our website has been but we are
now getting more than 100,000 hits a month from about 6000 separate users (by
November 2002 cool-reads was receiving 114, 000 hits a week). Each
user logs on for an average of just under five minutes.
Cool-reads.co.uk
Reviews
The key part of cool-reads site consists of book reviews written by people
between the ages of 10-15. We started writing the reviews ourselves and so far
we have reviewed about 430 books. We thought it would be a good idea to invite
other young people to write reviews as well and so far we have been sent more
than 800 reviews.
One problem is that not all these reviews are usable. Sometimes they are just
silly, or rude or both. Sometimes they don't make much sense either. We accept
about half of those sent in and put them up on the website.
Table 1
-
general breakdown of 1st category*
choice
Category |
rejected guest reviews |
accepted guest reviews |
cool-reads team
reviews |
Total |
Mystery &
adventure |
190 |
161 |
119 |
470 |
Suspense & horror |
18 |
12 |
15 |
45 |
Action stories |
9 |
6 |
10 |
25 |
Survival
|
38 |
17 |
38 |
93 |
Animal &
nature |
25 |
22 |
55 |
102 |
Things to do
with real life |
89 |
110 |
88 |
287 |
War |
2 |
16 |
31 |
49 |
Romance & love stories |
4 |
11 |
3 |
18 |
Characters & school stories |
5 |
3 |
6 |
14 |
People/Places/In the past |
9 |
33 |
32 |
74 |
Fun stuff |
11 |
18 |
13 |
42 |
Biography |
7 |
9 |
4 |
20 |
Short stories & snappy reads |
3 |
1 |
7 |
11 |
Sports |
5 |
0 |
2 |
7 |
Total |
415 |
419 |
423 |
1257 |
*
A reviewer can choose up to 3 categories
People writing a review choose up to 3 categories, which will group their
review with others with the same theme. Table 1 shows the breakdown of
all reviews by the first kind of category that the reviewer chooses. It gives
some idea of the kinds of books that interest people in our age group. Books
that fall into a general Mystery and adventure category are most popular. 'Real
life stories' come next.
Table 2
- detailed breakdown of 1st
category choice
Category |
Accepted guest reviews |
Cool-reads
team
reviews |
Total |
Mystery & adventure
- general |
38 |
34 |
72 |
Magic/Witchcraft |
36 |
25 |
61 |
Fantasy worlds |
46 |
17 |
63 |
Time travel |
7 |
1 |
8 |
Science fiction |
12 |
2 |
14 |
Ghosts and
supernatural |
13 |
20 |
33 |
Space |
0 |
3 |
3 |
Computers |
3 |
2 |
5 |
Crime and detective
stories |
7 |
13 |
20 |
Spies & undercover
stuff |
0 |
2 |
2 |
Suspense & horror |
12 |
15 |
27 |
Action stories |
6 |
10 |
16 |
Survival
-general |
9 |
17 |
26 |
Kids only |
4 |
10 |
14 |
Survival in the wild |
4 |
11 |
15 |
Animal & nature
- general |
4 |
9 |
13 |
Animals tell the story |
3 |
12 |
15 |
Lots of animal content |
15 |
34 |
49 |
Real life
- general |
42 |
25 |
67 |
Friends/families
|
61 |
49 |
110 |
Bullying |
5 |
8 |
13 |
Illness & disability |
4 |
6 |
10 |
War |
3 |
3 |
6 |
War in human world
(not WW2) |
5 |
3 |
8 |
Second World War |
8 |
19 |
27 |
War - animal or
fantasy world |
0 |
6 |
6 |
Romance & love stories |
11 |
3 |
14 |
Characters & school
stories |
3 |
6 |
9 |
People/Places/In the past |
33 |
32 |
65 |
Fun stuff |
18 |
13 |
31 |
Biography |
9 |
4 |
13 |
Short stories & snappy reads |
1 |
7 |
8 |
Sports |
0 |
2 |
2 |
Total |
422 |
423 |
845 |
On the website the categories are broken down into smaller groups and we show
all of the categories in Table 2.
Reviewers
Most book reviews are sent to us by 11-14 year olds (Chart 1). The
bottom of the columns show the reviews that we have accepted and the top shows
the ones that were rejected so you can see that we accept a higher proportion
reviews from older people. Chart 2 shows that 70 per cent of reviews have
been sent to us by girls and also that we are more likely to accept reviews by
girls (59 per cent) than by boys (31 per cent).


Why people think they read more than their friends:
My mum introduced me to books from a very early age (Female, 11)
I guess my parents started me on books earlier than most kids. Also there are
loads of books at home (Female, 13)
I was an only child so for most of my young life I had nothing else to do but
then I started to enjoy books so I kept on reading
(Male, 13)
Because I had good books read to me when I was young and was encouraged to
read a lot. (Female, 15)
I've enjoyed books from a very early age and I also love seeing things from
other people's perspectives. I just find books very entertaining and enjoyable.
(Female, 14)
Because I like to find out about people's lives (Female, 12)
Because I'm more keen, and I enjoy reading, whereas my friends think it's
'uncool'. I find it helps me in school and I learn a lot of interesting facts.
(Female, 13)
Because I am better at reading and don't really have much friends around my
house so I don't get out as much.
I am also more interested in books and enjoy them more as my family reads a lot.
(Female, 12)
I live in the middle of a field and do not have a computer! (Female, 13)
My mum & brother reads loads so it is just part of the family (Male, 13)
Most of our reviews are sent to us from the U.K. but we have also been sent
127 reviews from Australia and New Zealand (Chart 3).

Cool-readers
We are not really experts on why some young people like to read more than
others. We did think it might be interesting to find out a bit more about the
people who use our web site so we decided to carry out a small survey during May
this year. We put up a questionnaire on the site and asked for replies by the
end of the month. We asked publishers for signed copies of books for a prize
draw as an encouragement!
We received usable replies from 164 young people (92 girls and 72 boys). Not
surprisingly they were rather like our reviewers – two-thirds were aged 11-13
and the vast majority came from the UK, maybe that’s also because we had to say
we could only send the prizes to UK addresses because of postage costs!
How much they read
We asked them how much they read when compared with their classmates and
friends and more than a half (52 per cent) said that they read more. We also
asked people to comment on why they thought they read more than their friends,
and we have included some of their comments on page 3 of this text.

We do not watch much television so we wondered if watching television
affected how much you read, so our questions was to do with how much television
people watched and the answer can be seen from Chart 5. It looks as if a
lot of people watch TV more than we do!

Some additional comments were added to the question on how much people read
when compared with their friends and we noticed that quite a few who said they
read more, also said that did not watch television very much. We have included
some of these comments here.
I love reading and always find good books, I am a very fast reader and I
don't watch tv
and play on the computer much. (Female, 11)
I think I read more than them because I don't always just watch TV and I find
that I enjoy
reading more than some of my friends. (Female, 12)
I don't watch much TV (Female, 13)
People think reading books is boring and want to watch TV or films
(Female, 13)
Because my parents read to me when I was little and I'm not glued to trash on
the telly (well not as much) and I am not a narrow minded idiot like lots of
people I come across day to day. (Female, 13)
Most of the people I know watch a lot more TV than I do, and so have less
time for reading. I think it is all to do with taste, they like all the programs
on TV, where as I think they're crap. (Female, 13)
They watch TV and I read instead. (Female, 13)
I really enjoy reading although some friends prefer playing sport or watching
TV. (Female, 14)
We don't have a TV and I am not an average person anyway (Female, 14)
I think it is because I watch less TV and therefore read more (Male, 11)
Don't watch any TV at all (Male, 14)
How young people find out about books
We asked a question about how young people found out about books they might
like to read. Chart 6 shows that the most important source of information
was the local library or bookshop. People also liked to follow an author they
had read before or read books that their friends were reading. Teachers and
other grown-ups were not really in the running!

Friends seem to be quite important in finding out about books. Eighty-one per
cent of girls and 70 per cent of boys told us that they sometimes or often
talked to their friends about books that were good to read.
How people choose which books they want to read
We tried to find out what makes young people choose certain books once
they're looking around a bookshop or a library. You can see the answers in
Chart 7. It seems that the topic of the book itself (‘It’s about something I
like’) was the single most important factor but knowing other books by the same
author was also very significant. Book awards and the fact that "everyone is
talking about it" were much less important considerations.

We also asked people what kinds of books they would like to read more of and
not surprisingly, the answers were very similar to the kinds they were most keen
on reviewing for cool-reads. Out of the forty-two per cent who wanted to read
more mystery and adventure, 57% liked books with lots of magic and fantasy, the
remaining 42% liked their mystery and adventure to be quite realistic.
We also asked people what really put them off reading a book. The results are
shown in Chart 8. What is clear is that being told the book is a classic,
or being pushed to read it, or being recommended it at school are ways of
putting young people off reading a particular book. Forty per cent of answers
were of this type with the remainder divided between the book being too
childish, too long or difficult or being a book dressed up as fiction when it
was actually just a load of facts in a story.

Conclusion
In conclusion, we think the web is probably quite a good way of encouraging
young people to read - but throwing away televisions, giving more people access
to bookshops and libraries where they can choose books for themselves, and
allowing young people to choose books without being pressured by adults, might
also work quite well.
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