Myron Yarde

Alex Wheatle

I felt utter dismay as news reached me that yet another young life had been taken away on the streets of New Cross, South East London. In this case it was the seventeen-year-old Myron Yarde who had been stabbed to death on Sunday 2nd April, 2016. By all accounts he was a very talented young musician and songwriter. I have known families who have suffered the ultimate loss. Myron’s passing struck just as hard because he had attended Deptford Green School, an institution I had visited only recently to celebrate World Book Day – I had presented my eventful life story and my two YA novels to students who find it difficult to engage with reading.

Following these pointless fatalities, I am perpetually asked what can be done to address the problems of knife crime and how to challenge the mindsets of those young individuals who inflict such devastating trauma on families. As a writer, I’ll never pretend to have all the answers and solutions to a complex problem. However, I would point to a Cambridge University study by Maria Nikolajeva, professor of education, who surmised that ‘reading fiction provides an excellent training for young people developing and practising empathy...’

For me, encouraging young people to read is not simply about them learning good grammar, sentence structure, increasing their vocabulary skills and enjoying a rattling story. Healthy reading can also promote empathy, compassion, respect of life and understanding of other.  I’m heartened by the initiative taken by a number of schools where I have visited on their reading for pleasure periods and the positive roles school librarians play in establishing student book clubs and recommending novels to hard-to-reach readers. I recently attended the Wandsworth FAB Book awards where students in the London borough’s schools and academies had the opportunity to vote for their favourite children’s novel of the year – a brilliant initiative that should be imitated all over the UK.

Of course as an industry we can do more.  We should definitely publish more diverse fiction that engages and relates to working class students and tackles the issues and concerns they are facing today. Reading doesn’t just belong to middle class kids - all children need and deserve to see their lives reflected in books. YA fiction is leading the way in this respect with writers like Malorie Blackmon, Eve Ainsworth, Juno Dawson and Louise O’Neill to name just four.  It’s incredibly frustrating that such groundbreaking writing is confined to the margins of our newspaper book reviews and children’s fiction ‘round-ups’.

Dramatic adaptations of contemporary children’s literature on terrestrial television have become very rare. We all loved and were all moved by Happy Valley screened on the BBC recently, but when is the last time we actually enjoyed watching a contemporary drama on prime time TV where the main protagonist is sixteen or younger?  And please don’t offer me Eastenders as hardly any young person I know aspires to spend their time in the local pub whenever they reach legal drinking age – not in my part of London anyway.

Recently, we lost the great Barry Hines, author of A Kestrel For A Knave. Older friends of mine still rave about the book and the impact it had in its day and indeed on their lives.  They couldn’t wait to see Ken Loach’s film adaptation Kes. ‘The story is set in the north but it’s really about all of us,’ friends would tell me – all of us meaning working class. So TV and film can play its part in shaping the morals of young people. But let’s not forget the source material – the children’s novel.

Once armed with narratives they can relate to, I would also encourage debates with pupils about the choices and moral decisions that young characters make in fiction and discuss the consequences and fallout from flawed decision-making. I understand that teachers are not social workers or counsellors but many of our children need to form a moral compass for themselves because many do not find it at home – it’s an uncomfortable truth. Healthy reading can assist in that development.

A recent YouGov opinion poll, commissioned by Amnesty International, concluded that more than half of the parents in the UK believe that reading books can help children learn empathy. If that’s the case it’s a surprise for me that reading for pleasure is not a vital part of the school week up and down the country.

There might well be more Myron Yardes breathing their last on our streets. Those of us who are passionate about this issue understand how difficult it is to fight against a hyper-macho mentality and deeply entrenched peer pressure. I’m sure we will not be able to convince every young person to spend a few minutes of their school day perusing books in their library. But we have to try.  If one novel, with its moral choices and difficult life-changing decisions, can ease the knife out of a young person’s grasp, it’ll be worth it.