Mexico and its lack of readers

Today, in the on line magazine of IBBY's Mexican Chapter, L de Lectura, I read about a survey that talks about reading in Mexico and some of the comparisons made ver the world. For example, at the question In the last 12 months have you read at least one book? The answers were UK 82%, France 71%, Spain 59%, and Mexico 27%. From these, only a 13% finished the book. A sad thing to see, but it is not like we did not knew, here in Mexico, that people do not read. It is more sad to see that in Germany they read 12 books per year, in Spain 7.7 books per year, but in Mexico a 2.9 books per year.

I can think of a lot of reason why are these numbers so low in Mexico, a lot of explanations, which could go from the psychology of the Mexican, as we have been conquered and always "dominated" to the simplest reason that we are lazy and prefer TV. All of them, that we could think about are correct. But I also can see a slight change in the trend, being that the Young Reader sector is a glooming industry in Mexico. They do read. We might not like what they read, we could say that it is commercial literature, I do not care, they are reading and really interested in what they are reading.

We have heard, so much that it has turned to a cliche, that if the Parent does not talk to the children and show them the benefits of reading, they will not read. But what about this: the parent is the one that read less, so how is the children or the young adult going to love literature if they do not see they parents or tutors reading. So I am starting to see a change of perspective here. The kids are the ones that are teaching their parents to read.

And there are some examples but I think that the more reliable and current ones are, The Twilight Trilogy and Harry Potter. These two books were written, at first, for a sector between 10 and lets say 18 years old (Twilight a 14-18) but they have been read by every age segment. So this books were intended for kids and the parents read them and started getting interested in reading. An incredible turn of events. A real shocker. At least here in Mexico.

So, I think that the government has to stop thinking about how to teach the young ones to read, and start thinking in how to start teaching the parents to read. They have to stop forcing the kids to read the classics, and start by giving them some reads that could, at first gave them the interest to read, and then when they are hooked, give them the classics.