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Authors raise doubts over Gove's 50-book challenge
Education secretary Michael Gove has suggested that children as young as 11 should be reading 50 books a year – and that leading children's authors should recommend them.
Following a tour he made of America's independently-run, state-funded charter schools – including the Infinity Charter School in Harlem, which set its pupils a "50-book challenge" over the course of a year – Gove said that schools in the UK needed to "raise the bar" on children's reading:
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"Recently, I asked to see what students were reading at GCSE," Gove said. "I discovered that something like 80-90% were just reading one or two novels – and overwhelmingly it was the case that it included Of Mice and Men. We should be saying that our children should be reading 50 books a year, not just one or two for GCSE." 我们应该告诉孩子们每年阅读50本书籍，而不是为了应付毕业考读一本两本就完事。
【注释】GCSE为英国的初中毕业统考。《人鼠之间》是美国小说家斯坦贝克1937年的作品。英国的语文毕业统考要求学生细致分析选定的小说或诗歌，显然《人鼠之间》是该年度的考试选书。
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But children's laureate Anthony Browne has said Gove's aims are at odds with the library closures happening under his government's watch. He declared himself "surprised" at Gove's comments, "given that the government is cutting library budgets, and that programmes giving free books to children, such as Bookstart, are also being cut."
儿童诗桂冠诗人安东尼·布朗尼却对此建议表示“惊奇”，指出教育部长的目标与政府的现行政策相悖，政府正在削减图书馆经费，削减为儿童提供免费图书的项目。言下之意，此建议不过是空谈而已。
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"It's always good to hear that the importance of children's reading is recognised – but rather than setting an arbitrary number of books that children ought to read, I feel it's the quality of children's reading experiences that really matter," Browne said. "Pleasure, engagement and enjoyment of books is what counts – not simply meeting targets."
布朗尼说：“听见儿童阅读的重要性得到承认总是好的，但是与其随便设一个孩子们应读书籍的定额数字，我感觉，孩子们阅读体验的质量才是关键。欢愉、专注、享受，这些才真正算数，而不是简单地完成的某个定额。”
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Browne's views were echoed by others'. Frank Cottrell Boyce, author of children's novels Cosmic and Millions, said that while Gove's instincts were right, the government's wider actions were "militating against what Gove wants – like closing libraries, which is just a disaster."
布朗尼的观点得到了其他作家的响应，儿童作家博易思说，戈夫的直觉虽然正确，但政府的行为效果却与恰恰他的愿望相反，诸如关闭图书馆等等措施，根本就是灾难性的。
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Alan Garner, author of children's classic The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, meanwhile, questioned the advisability of turning books into numbers. "Is any number a useful guide?" he asked. "The important aim should be a reading that is wide and deep rather than numerical. In my own primary school years I read everything I could find, which amounted to at least four books a week and as many comics as possible. The Beano and The Dandy were equal with Tarzan of the Apes, Enid Blyton, HG Wells, Kipling, wildlife books, fairy tales, encyclopaedias. This resulted, painlessly, in a large vocabulary, an awareness of differences of style, the absorption of grammar and syntax and an ability to spell."
儿童经典《怪异宝石》的作者阿兰·伽内尔则质问将书籍变为定额是否适宜，“哪个数字定额可以作为有用的指导？根本的目标是广泛深入的阅读，而不是用数字衡量的阅读。我上小学时，看遍了能找得到的书，大概合起来，每星期四本的样子，再加上尽可能多的漫画。《比诺与丹迪》和《猿人泰山》；依尼德·布莱顿、H·G·威尔斯、吉普林；野生动物，童话，百科全书。结果，没有经历丝毫痛苦，就拥有了大量词汇，拥有了对不同的风格领悟力，对语法句法的着迷，和正确拼写的能力。”
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Philip Pullman, author of the prizewinning His Dark Materials trilogy, agreed - and added a further caveat. "I'm all in favour of children reading books, of course, the more the merrier," he said. "What I'm wary of is that people will start saying that quality is more important than quantity. When it comes to reading books, children should be allowed – and encouraged – to read as much rubbish as they want to. But that can only happen when there are plenty of good books as well as rubbish all around them. Where are they going to get these 50 books a year from?"
获奖小说《黑质三部曲》的作者菲利普·普尔曼表示同意，并进一步警告说，“我当然赞同让孩子们读书——多多益善，我担心的是，会有人开始强调质量高于数量。我认为，在儿童阅读这个问题上，我们应该允许孩子们阅读垃圾，不仅允许，还要鼓励，爱读多少垃圾都可以。但那只能当孩子们周围同时存在大量好书的情况下才行。你让孩子们到哪里去找这50本书啊？”
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Meanwhile, Miranda McKearney, chief executive of the Reading Agency, which runs an annual Summer Reading Challenge in which children are encouraged to read six library books over the holiday, expressed concern over the execution of Gove's ambition. "So often the discussion about how to inspire children to read focuses just on schools, but libraries, and families, have a key role to play," she said. "We won't crack the problems unless we build a more systemic approach."
同时，“大家读”组织的负责人米兰达·麦卡尼对如何实施戈夫的雄心计划表示疑虑，“每当谈起如何激励孩子们阅读，大家总是聚集在学校。但是图书馆和家庭的角色至关重要。除非建立一个系统性的处理方式，我们不可能解决这个难题。”“大家读”是一个独立的慈善机构，旨在通过举办各种活动，提高全民的阅读水平。每年暑假，“大家读”都举办面向少年儿童的“暑假读书挑战”，鼓励参加活动的孩子们在假期里从图书馆借阅6本书。
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