And after Saint George's Day, what?

BarcelonaSant Jordi has ended and we save for next year the phrases we always repeat to ourselves: that it's the most beautiful day of the year, that it should be a holiday, that if any country had this festival we would envy them, what luck to enjoy a Day that's about reading and loving. Exactly, a festival where we put books at the center and where we make the rankings of the best-sellers, which doesn't mean the most read. I wonder how many of the books bought for Sant Jordi are left on the nightstands, waiting for their moment. When it's summer, when the children go to camp, when this project ends, when I'm less tired. With reading, we do a bit like life, we keep waiting for the optimal moment without realizing that it's now and today that we have to read more, go out more, or rest more. And I say this to those of you who now have young children and are more in the thick of it: they won't be little again, but you won't be the age and have the energy you have now either.

They say “we are what we read” but the reality is that we all read less than we want. We are very clear that we want our children to be readers, but it's very difficult to prioritize it beyond Sant Jordi. Children have to do school homework, extracurriculars, sports, healthy meals, and have a social life. And us too, between the 10,000 steps, drinking two liters of water, working eight hours, or beauty routines with many products, I don't know about you, but for me, the day isn't enough for all that.

Now I should give you advice on how to read more and better. And I would love to do so, if only there were a recipe for getting reading children or for each book to come with a gift voucher for the time needed to read it. Can you imagine that? "Here's the book and six free hours to enjoy it!". But no. I don't have the answer to how we can read more in a world where every day we have a thousand things and we juggle to get everything done.

Reading in the age of screens

I always think that the key is not to get bogged down, that if we don't like a book we can abandon it without any remorse and that if we have a reading block it's very normal. When we've had a book stuck for a while, it's time to set it aside and look for a book that is either shorter or more our style to get out of the block. And everyone has these reading droughts, including children. Don't worry if your children read a lot in primary school and have now stopped, they'll get back to it. And conversely, I see countless students who don't become readers until they reach secondary school. Because of a saga, because of a movie, because it's a book that everyone reads on TikTok or for whatever reason. They start and then they can't be stopped.

Reading in the age of screens is quite a challenge. Reading does not imply an immediate reward like social media because to get into a good story we often have to go through a "toll" of many pages. These first pages require effort and a lot of calm, like the first twenty minutes of a movie or the first chapter of a series. Once inside, we pick up speed. But it is difficult because attention levels are at an all-time low and even we teachers find it very difficult to put on a movie due to the low concentration capacity of many students.

That's why reading brings us so much. Because stopping and disconnecting is a challenge. And because we cannot forget the well-being and happiness that a book that captivates us brings. Reading is so rewarding that it can never be plan B nor be seen as the boring alternative with phrases like "turn off the TV and start reading". Surely our children will also encounter tedious books, but this effort helps them grow. Because they won't eat the children's menu of macaroni all their lives, there comes a day when they have to risk trying new things and with reading it's a bit the same. The day comes when you click with a book (and we all know which book changed us forever) and it is at that moment that we have the certainty that reading will be part of our lives. Forever and beyond Sant Jordi.