It was the idea of having open-air lessons on the top of a building that really grabbed Richard and Lewis Edwards-Middleton’s children. Their four-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son were reading Munni’s Rooftop School, from Save the Children’s Wonderbooks series, and the school in question just sounded like so much fun. But there was more to the book that made it memorable. “Building on that fun, interesting element was the actual story around it, and how different it is in different countries,” says Richard. Those differences – including the fact that Munni, the book’s hero, had initially not been allowed to go to school – left his son taken aback, but full of empathy for a character he felt connected to.
“He asked lots of questions and that’s what we love, because we get to answer them,” says Lewis. “And we answer them truthfully, because there’s no point making out that the world is a fairytale.”
As adoptive parents, Richard and Lewis, AKA Instagram’s @twodadsinlondon, are particularly attuned to the importance of giving children an understanding of the world that runs deeper than their own experiences – and the way reading can foster that.
“In the books we choose, we always try to make sure we have a range of situations,” says Lewis. “Our children’s story is quite different as well,” Richard adds. “They’ve got a two-dad family and they’re from two different families, so they’re not birth siblings.” Disappointed at how hard it was to find books about adoptive families that weren’t specifically about adoption, the couple wrote their own book, My Family and Other Families.
For Teresa Cremin, professor of education and co-director of the Literacy and Social Justice Centre at the Open University, empathy is a key social and emotional capacity for children, especially in a divided world riven with deep inequalities. “We’re giving young people the opportunity to understand more about others’ worlds and worldviews through reading,” she says.
Cremin, who began her career in education as a primary teacher, saw the power of narrative firsthand. “The children who have a strong understanding of others, and who don’t jump to judge, but who listen first and then respond, are often those who are really engaged, avid fiction readers – learning about how to be, socially, through the fictional world of narrative,” she says. Being exposed to a broad range of experiences and cultures through reading doesn’t just teach them more about the lives of other people, it allows them to start seeing those situations through their eyes.
Cremin is especially interested in the way empathy, prompted by the recognition of injustice or inequality understood through reading fiction, can translate into social action, to the benefit of society, the environment, and the planet. “Empathy, well shaped, connects people, breaking down barriers and leads to something,” she says. “It leads to progress, it leads to creativity, and potentially to a fairer and more just society.”
And reading with children has a host of other benefits. More assured readers frequently have a stronger sense of self-esteem, she says – which isn’t surprising given that reading is a key skill, giving children confidence not just as individuals, but across the rest of the curriculum.
As our experiences in lockdown showed, reading also enhances young people’s psychological wellbeing, offering a source of calm, relaxation or escapism. “For some children, it’s a place of refuge, in terms of stepping away from the world and escaping into a fictional world,” says Cremin.
Jonny Walker, a teacher, author and the founder of OtherWise Education, whose projects with schools aim to develop children’s self-expression and self-understanding, believes good picture books can open a space for dialogue, empathy and reflection.
Reading in the classroom benefits from being as interactive and social as possible, he says, because when children share their thoughts on what they’ve read, the impact is multiplied.
“Children learn that not only do the books often shine a light on the complexity of the world around us – they get to see that, because of all of our different experiences, we all engage differently with ideas,” he says.
“Children develop empathy with characters and situations in a story, but in a social reading culture, they also develop empathy with each other. Knowing each other as readers is inseparable from knowing each other as people.”
Of course, children’s empathy doesn’t just develop through characters in fiction. With the Wonderbooks series, dads Richard and Lewis love the fact the stories are based on the lives of real children, with details included at the back. “When you get to explain: ‘Actually, this is who this character is, this is what they look like’,” says Lewis, “I think that gives it an extra level for them to understand; that it’s not just like Disneyland, this is a true story, this is what happens. And this is why we’re telling you about it – because it’s great to learn all about different backgrounds and lives.”
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