Philip Pullman joins call for compulsory school libraries

Philip Pullman, the author of His Dark Materials, has joined authors including Michael Morpurgo and Julia Donaldson in calling for legislation to ensure that every school has a library; around 14% of primary schools have no library, and the number of secondary schools with libraries is understood to be falling. 

Last September a National Literacy Trust report revealed that more than 56% of eight to 18-year-olds do not enjoy reading in their free time - a record low, and a decline that Pullman believes school libraries could help to reverse.

Speaking to The Observer, Pullman said, "The school library is absolutely essential at every level of education, and it needs legal protection and status.  It is too easy to think that books and reading for pleasure are not essential, whereas nothing is more certain to improve children's ability - and desire - to read richly and well.

He has also criticised the "downgrading" of school libraries into information centres, "with the focus on computers and technology rather than books."

He added: "The school library is without question the most important room in the entire school, because it contains - or used to contain, or should contain - books that are not required for examination purposes," said Pullman. "Books that no one might expect to find. Books on every subject under the sun. Books that some teachers don't even know are there."

Authors have been vocal in trying to get recognition of the important work done by school libraries, and funding for books to stock them; as children's laureate, author Cresside Cowell lobbied the government to put aside £100m of funding for books for school libraries during the pandemic.  War Horse writer Sir Michael Morpurgo has recently written to MPs to demand funding for books, and Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson has spoken out on school libraries during a BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme this month.

Pullman told The Observer that he had visited Michael Gove when he was education secretary to make the argument for action. "He thanked me courteously and took no notice whatsoever," Pullman said, adding, "The library should be the heart, the soul, the mind, the source, the spring, the gold-bearing seam, the engine room, the treasure chamber, the priceless inheritance, the joy and the pride of the school. Every school."