Dame Jacqueline Wilson has said parents “scrolling” on their phones are to blame for children’s poor literacy rates as she made a stirring call for change.
The Tracy Beaker author said that after “loving a child and feeding a child, getting them to like books is the third thing”.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, she said she hopes parents are not “so attached to their own phones and scrolling all the time” and will consider reading to their children when they are really young.
“A very young child is shown that books can be magical and exciting and really interesting then with a bit of luck they will grow up with this love of books”, she said, according to The Telegraph.
The percentage of children and young people who said they enjoyed reading is its lowest in 20 years, according to a survey taken by the National Literacy Trust in early 2025.
Just one in three children and young people aged eight to 18 said that they enjoyed reading in their free time in 2025.
Dame Jacqueline said: “Reading is really one of the most important things in my life. I’m like somebody who is the head of a cult or a slightly obscure religious sect, I want to bang my drum and say ‘Read!”
The bestselling author also took aim at children books published in recent years for not having enough words.
While she admitted they are “brilliant entertainment”, she said they are filled with cartoons or illustrations “about the rude noises that we talk about” rather than actual words.
The 79-year-old is author to over 100 books, and was speaking at the festival to promote her newest endeavour, Picture Imperfect. The adult book is a sequel to her 1999 children’s book, The Illustrated Mum.
Acknowledging that times have changed since she first began writing, she said childhood is now “more difficult for children” and they are not “as resilient as they used to be” because of the pandemic and social media.
“Possibly because we are so tuned into the way children feel and because of Covid they didn’t have the usual experiences of going to school and being teased sometimes,” she suggested.
She said that children do not get respite at home after a tough day at school due to social media and bullies able to reach them through their phones, saying it “must be awful”.
The author added that she “wants to weep” when she sees the way young girls are impacted by high beauty standards.
