Reading Together: Why the Whitsundays Writers Festival Wants the Blokes to Pick Up a Book
OPINION
By Richard Evans, President Whitsundays Writers Festival
A child who sees an adult reading learns something important: that books are not merely homework. They are company, adventure, knowledge, laughter, and sometimes the beginning of a story of one’s own. So when did you last see a dad reading on the couch, a grandfather sharing a favourite story, or a sports coach talking about a book at training?
For many Whitsunday families, it’s a fair question.
Reading for pleasure does more than fill spare time. It builds vocabulary, imagination, empathy and the confidence to think deeply. Skills that follow children through school and into life. The numbers show why these matters. More than two-thirds of Australians aged 15 and over read for pleasure, so there is a strong culture to build on locally. Yet nationally, one in three children is not reading proficiently, roughly eight children in every class of 24.
The gap is particularly noticeable among boys and young men. This isn’t because boys are naturally less interested in stories, it’s more about opportunity, choice, and role models. Young Australian men aged 15 to 24 are currently the least likely group to read recreationally. When boys don’t see the men in their lives – fathers, uncles, grandfathers, cousins, sport coaches, teachers – reading and talking about books, it’s easy for reading to quietly slip off the list of things “people like me” do.
Letting boys choose their own books, whether that’s sport biographies, graphic novels, history or science fiction, matters too: most children say the books they enjoy most are the ones they picked themselves.
Of course, screens are part of modern life, and they’re not the enemy.
Audiobooks, e-books, graphic novels, and online reading communities like BookTok can all be genuine pathways into stories. The real question isn’t screens versus books. It’s whether children have regular, unhurried time to read something they actually enjoy, alongside adults who model that same joy.
This is exactly the conversation the Whitsundays Writers Festival wants to start.
Two festival panels – Is There a Book in You? and Where Do You Get Your Story Ideas From? – explore how reading and writing are connected: reading opens the door to ideas, and writing gives those ideas a voice. Families are warmly invited to attend, ask questions, and discover local and regional authors who might just become a child’s next favourite.
The next generation of Whitsunday readers, and perhaps writers, may begin with something wonderfully simple: an adult, a child, a good book, and time to share it.
This September, the Festival invites the whole community, especially the blokes, to pick up a book and be seen doing it.
Richard can be contacted via hello@whitsundayswriters.com