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By David Rothman

BabbittEducators and librarians rejoiced. Harry Potter was driving kids back to books. But will the supposed good times go on, now that the series is winding down? To what extent has the Potter phenomenon really helped literacy among the young?

Well, perhaps not as much as hoped, if you go by the New York Times and Print is Dead—following up on a Boston Globe mention of a forthcoming study.

Net among the villains

The Internet is among the distractions driving the young from books, at least the paper variety; just consider the amount of time devoted to social sites, the usual IMs and, now, Twitter. It’s urgent to get real books online, including recreational reading, and ideally they can be integrated into social sites of both the profit and nonprofit varieties. While e-book technology abounds with flaws, it’s imperative for libraries to experiment in a serious way and not just offer e-books but also help patrons adjust to them.

Alas, many in the current library world—not all—are Luddites or technophobes or still doesn’t understand the connection between book-length recreational reading and the business variety, or the value of novels as novels. Yes, I’m talking about both media and content. The lower costs of e-books could help recreational reading. The less expense per novel, the more fiction possible—and the closer the match with a reader’s interests and needs.

K-12 Babbitts

Educators, too, not just certain librarians, can fail to connect the dots and can miss the potential of e-books, recreational reading, and the value of the two combined. “If you look at what most people need to read for their occupation, it’s zero narrative,” the Times quotes Michael L. Kamil, a professor of education at Stanford University. “I don’t want to deny that you should be reading stories and literature. But we’ve overemphasized it.” As paraphrased by the Times, he believes that children “need to learn to read for information… something they can practice while reading on the Internet, for example.”

Hmm. Where is Sinclair Lewis when we need him? Is Stanford turning into Zenth, or at least this one professor turning into Babbitt in regard to youthful reading? Shall we downplay literature somewhat because most workers really need “zero narrative”?

Oh no! They might take Dickens seriously

Forget the insights, critical-thinking skills and values that habitual reading of the usual literature can communicate, no? Let young people read novels, but play down the promotion of the habit. Oh, and be careful. Some students might take Charles Dickens seriously. What if they’re uppity about the 19th-century mindset that characterizes so many leaders in education, the library world, politics, and business today?

The irony is that certain business-related authors over the years have recommended that striving executives read fiction for wisdom they can apply to business. They are right. What The Great Gatsby says about ambition, disappointment, snobbery and pretense could apply to more than a few American hierarchies in business and academia. Last I knew, Bill Gates owned several copies of Gatsby. Could there be a reason other than pretense? Maybe. He just might be more appreciative of the lessons taught there than the K-12 Babbitts are.

Why narrative counts, even by Babbitt’s standards

Beyond that, narrative writing per se can be valuable in business in explaining failures and successes so they can be avoided or replicated—not just at executive levels but also on factory floors. When did a problem arise, why and who’s to blame? Just who said what to X at what time? Such questions can easily arise in the era of the electronic memo. And one of the best ways to learn to write narrative, even the prosaic, analytical, business-related kind, is to read good fiction and see prose reflecting the masters’ understanding of human nature, not just magic with words.

I suppose the comeback would be, “Oh, but will all students need good narrative skills?” Maybe not. But—beyond the value of literature for literature’s sake, and the need for a smarter workforce—do we really want to settle that question so early in the students’ lives? Perhaps it isn’t such a coincidence that the “zero-narrative” quote came out of an elite private school rather than a state university in the American heartland. Who knows—perhaps even George Follansbee Babbitt would have called Prof. Kamil to task on that one.

And a few words in Prof. Kamil’s favor: Based on a quick tour of his Web site, I’d say he does not come from an elite background. I’d urge him to remember his roots. I’d also agree with him that more of the basic K-12 texts should be nonfiction (something different from downplaying the value of narrative to the extent he did as represented by the Times). I’ll not say he’s a Babbitt about everything, just on this particular issue.

Close to home: Frustratingly, my local library system in Alexandria, VA, does not even offer downloadable e-book files. Perhaps e-books could eventually address some omissions from the paper collection of this less-than-great Library of Alexandria, and in fact I’ve heard that the system might reconsider e-books. Meanwhile, however, I can’t even find The Shad Treatment, perhaps one of the best modern novels to come out of Virginia and probably worth a thousand boring civics books.

 
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