{"id":475,"date":"2026-06-12T13:08:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475"},"modified":"2026-06-12T13:08:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:08:06","slug":"why-book-shaming-wont-solve-the-childrens-literacy-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475","title":{"rendered":"Why \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
You\u2019re reading Progress Report<\/strong>, Jessica Winter\u2019s column on family and K-12 education.<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Mac Barnett is a best-selling author of children\u2019s books, including a suite of droll, spare picture-book collaborations with the illustrator Jon Klassen, and the whimsical \u201cFirst Cat in Space\u201d series of graphic novels, illustrated by Shawn Harris. Barnett is also the current National Ambassador for Young People\u2019s Literature, and, last month, he published his first book for adults, titled \u201cMake Believe: On Telling Stories to Children.\u201d A hubbub sprang up on social media around a passage of the book in which Barnett floats the possibility that \u201c94.7 percent of kids\u2019 books are crud.\u201d (Barnett was riffing on an old quotation by the science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, who was making the point that the vast majority of works in any literary genre are subpar.) Some authors, librarians, and miscellaneous posters were outraged that Barnett would pour scorn on the very field that he is officially tasked with championing. A petition of complaint to the Library of Congress and the nonprofit Every Child a Reader, the two bodies that appoint the National Ambassador for Young People\u2019s Literature, attracted a few hundred signatures.<\/p>\n

Read more \u201cMudville,\u201d Reviewed: An Atlanta Filmmaker\u2019s Expansive D.I.Y. Family Drama<\/a><\/p>\n

The author\u2019s defenders said that the comment was taken out of context, and Barnett has repeatedly apologized for labelling most kid lit as \u201ccrud.\u201d \u201cThat line is not in the spirit of the book,\u201d he told the Times<\/em>. At a bookstore event in May, Barnett found a sympathetic audience in fellow children\u2019s-book author Jeff Kinney, of the \u201cDiary of a Wimpy Kid\u201d series. Kinney remarked that, in the past, there were more \u201cforums to share provocative takes on children\u2019s literature,\u201d but that \u201cthose spaces have really dried up.\u201d Barnett invoked Katharine White, the New Yorker<\/em> editor who, in the nineteen-thirties and forties, published more than a dozen lengthy omnibus reviews of new children\u2019s books in this magazine. Such serious consideration of young people\u2019s literature was once \u201ctrue of so many newspapers, magazines,\u201d Barnett said. There used to be more opportunities, in other words, to separate the wheat from the crud.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Barnett is attempting to reclaim some of that space. In a conversation last year with one of his predecessors as National Ambassador for Young People\u2019s Literature, Jason Reynolds, Barnett said that he wasn\u2019t especially interested in \u201cbeing a champion of literacy to kids, going and, like, urging kids to read.\u201d Instead, he went on, \u201cI really want to be an ambassador from kids\u2019 books to, like, the wider literary world to advocate on behalf just of the value of these books, and the brilliance of the kids who read them.\u201d In \u201cMake Believe,\u201d Barnett presents a slim manifesto for the idea that \u201ckids have a right to great literature,\u201d exemplified by books such as Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd\u2019s \u201cGoodnight Moon\u201d and Maurice Sendak\u2019s \u201cWhere the Wild Things Are.\u201d Picture books, and kid lit writ large, are under siege by didacticism, Barnett writes, which creates \u201ca literature that is flat, homogenous, and boring,\u201d one that \u201ctends to warp narrative, flatten characters, and mar beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

He is strikingly reiterative, yet nonspecific, about his distaste for most children\u2019s literature. \u201cThere are so many bad kids\u2019 books,\u201d Barnett writes, \u201cand kids\u2019 books are bad in so many different ways.\u201d He states that \u201ca big reason for our low opinion of children\u2019s books is simply that lots of children\u2019s books are bad.\u201d He drills down on common traits among the \u201cabundance of bad kids\u2019 books\u201d: \u201cThere are treacly ones, and preachy ones\u201d; there are \u201cbooks with amateurish writing, or amateurish illustrations, or both; bland books; boring books.\u201d The \u201ccrud\u201d line may have suffered from context collapse on social media, but, even in its original setting, it hardly reads like an isolated quip\u2014more like a variation on a theme. (Although Barnett tends not to name names of his worst offenders, he did, in conversation with Reynolds, go on a brief rant against Robert McCloskey\u2019s \u201cMake Way for Ducklings,\u201d which is somewhat akin to a Pixar director deciding to rip \u201cBambi\u201d a new one.)<\/p>\n

Barnett\u2019s consternation about the proper status of his craft puts him in company with P. L. Travers, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien\u2014all writers who spoke astringently about the condescension paid to their work and the dubiousness of relegating children\u2019s books to a separate, lesser-than category of literature. Children\u2019s authors \u201cinhabit a sort of literary shtetl<\/em>,\u201d Sendak said in 1980. \u201cWhen I won a prize for Wild Things<\/em>, my father spoke for a great many critics when he asked whether I would now be allowed to work on \u2018real\u2019 books.\u201d These assumptions may not have changed much in the decades since\u2014in the first sentence of the first chapter of \u201cMake Believe,\u201d Barnett complains that if you write books for kids, \u201cpeople will often ask you if you plan on ever writing a real book.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing that has shifted since Sendak\u2019s heyday, however, is our baseline of assumptions about how much kids are reading, or how well or how happily, or to what extent the culture that surrounds them is fundamentally hostile to reading. Barnett\u2019s concerns about literary merit and professional esteem may be timeless, but they are not terribly timely; they seem to float high above the current on-the-ground realities of what many educators and researchers agree to be a literacy crisis. In urging his audience to see children\u2019s books as \u201creal books,\u201d Barnett skips over larger, more pressing questions about why so many children aren\u2019t reading books at all, real or otherwise.<\/p>\n

About a week after the Barnett controversy broke, the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford and the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard published a study of district-level test-score data from across the country, which found that the \u201cUnited States entered a \u2018learning recession\u2019 in 2013, as student progress in math and reading stalled and achievement began to decline\u201d; the researchers wrote that, by 2024, eighth-grade reading scores were \u201cat their lowest point since 1990.\u201d On June 10th, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP<\/em>) released survey results showing that just thirty-seven per cent of nine-year-olds and fourteen per cent of thirteen-year-olds read for fun in their free time \u201calmost every day\u201d (down from fifty-three per cent and thirty-five per cent, respectively, in 1984). Twenty-nine per cent of thirteen-year-olds reported \u201cnever or hardly ever\u201d reading for pleasure, compared with eight per cent in 1984. (The NAEP<\/em> report noted encouraging signs of a turnaround in reading scores among nine-year-olds; according to the Stanford-Harvard analysis, the states that saw over-all gains in reading achievement between 2022 and 2025 have, in recent years, reformed their literacy curricula to embrace a \u201cscience of reading\u201d approach.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Ample research shows that passive content consumption among kids and teens is adversely affecting attention spans, language attainment, and other factors that help make deep reading both sustainable and fun. It\u2019s all the more alarming, then, that forty-six per cent of teen-agers reported being online \u201calmost constantly\u201d in a 2024 Pew survey. Meanwhile, phone-addicted adults aren\u2019t necessarily modelling reading habits for the young people in their lives. A 2025 analysis of the American Time Use Survey found that the proportion of people \u201cwho read for pleasure on an average day\u201d fell from twenty-eight per cent in 2004 to sixteen per cent in 2023. And a 2022 Scholastic report found that only thirty-seven per cent of parents read aloud to infants before they turned three months old, a six-point drop in just four years.<\/p>\n

Federal and state governments, too, appear to be inimical to children\u2019s literacy. DOGE<\/em> cuts to Americorps, the national-service program, have hampered tutoring and literacy programs in multiple states. Dolly Parton\u2019s Imagination Library program, which mails free books to children from birth to age five, has also lost funding in several states, most recently Missouri, where the state\u2019s education department announced that it will stop new enrollments of children in the program on July 1st.<\/p>\n

Read more Are Americans Too Old?<\/a><\/p>\n

In the midst of a reading emergency, librarians are the E.M.T.s. \u201cWe need to be talking to children about what they want to read, what makes them feel connected to literature, and how we can go about supporting their connections with literature,\u201d Arlene Laverde, an elementary-school librarian in Manhattan and a past president of the New York Library Association, told me. School librarians are uniquely well-positioned to provide that support, she added, because of the ongoing nature of their relationships with students. Research shows that schools with librarians tend to outperform schools without them on standardized tests, and even that schools with full-time librarians get better scores than schools with part-time library staff.<\/p>\n

Yet, according to the education magazine Phi Delta Kappan<\/em>, the number of full-time school librarians in the U.S. dropped by about twenty-five per cent between 2010 and 2023. By the following year, thirty-seven per cent of school districts reported not having a librarian at all; previous research has shown that the proportion is even higher in the smallest districts, which tend to be rural. These trends predate the \u201cgrooming\u201d hysteria of the Joe Biden era, when calls for book bans surged and school librarians were routinely harassed over false claims that they were foisting inappropriate material on students. Since then, President Donald Trump has signed executive orders to dismantle both the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the federal agencies that provide major funding to school and public libraries, respectively.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to quantify all that is lost when schools lose librarians. But one place where their guidance and expertise can be pivotal relates to the phenomenon often called the \u201cfourth-grade slump\u201d or \u201cdecline by nine,\u201d which refers to the steep drop-off in both reading interest and reading frequency that many children, especially boys, exhibit around age nine. Avoiding this cliff is more likely with the help of a librarian who understands her students\u2019 likes and dislikes, who respects their autonomy and individuality, and who can use this knowledge to guide kids toward the texts they will love, regardless of whether or not they meet a subjective threshold of literary excellence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my experience, many young boys don\u2019t want to read narrative fiction unless it\u2019s gruesome,\u201d Laverde told me. These kids may need her help in seeking out informational texts, she said, perhaps in the form of a reference book or a technical manual; what they specifically don\u2019t need is anyone saying that such books are flat or bad or unbeautiful. \u201cAs adults, we might say, \u2018That\u2019s not real reading,\u2019 but it absolutely is,\u201d Laverde said.<\/p>\n

Among the fiction titles that do connect with kids in this age bracket, some of the biggest commercial hits are essentially entry-level graphic novels, such as Kinney\u2019s \u201cDiary of a Wimpy Kid,\u201d Dav Pilkey\u2019s \u201cCaptain Underpants\u201d and \u201cDog Man,\u201d Lincoln Peirce\u2019s \u201cBig Nate,\u201d and Aaron Blabey\u2019s \u201cThe Bad Guys.\u201d These are \u201clight, funny stories-with-pictures that can help uncertain readers make the leap from picture books to big-kid books,\u201d Dan Kois wrote in a 2024 piece for Slate<\/em>. (Some of these entries appear to prove Laverde\u2019s \u201cunless it\u2019s gruesome\u201d hypothesis; the titular Dog Man, for one, is sewn together from the remains of a cop and a canine who were grievously injured in a bomb explosion.) Books in this mold are nobody\u2019s idea of high art\u2014nor, for that matter, is Barnett and Harris\u2019s similarly situated \u201cFirst Cat in Space\u201d series. The median parent (me) of a \u201cBig Nate\u201d and \u201cDog Man\u201d\u2013loving nine-year-old (mine) may wish that their kid was more inclined to the classic likes of \u201cCharlotte\u2019s Web,\u201d \u201cWhere the Red Fern Grows,\u201d or \u201cHarriet the Spy.\u201d But librarians and educators stress that what\u2019s more important than matters of taste is keeping kids conditioned to reading at a crucial developmental moment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\u201cWhen someone starts exercising for their health, we don\u2019t criticize their choice of exercise or belittle them for not being able to run a marathon on the first day,\u201d Deborah Reed, director of the Tennessee Reading Research Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, told me. \u201cOnce the habit is formed, they do more and are encouraged to try new things they previously didn\u2019t think were possible. Shouldn\u2019t we approach reading the same way?\u201d Yet, at a moment when political, economic, technological, and cultural forces are aligned against young readers and libraries, the National Ambassador for Young People\u2019s Literature is loudly rejecting a high percentage of books that readers might be drawn to on a library\u2019s shelves. \u201cWhat I want from someone in this role is to champion all different kinds of reading,\u201d Laverde said. \u201cWe need people to want to read, as opposed to policing what they read. The book-shaming has to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

I admittedly share Barnett\u2019s nostalgia for the bygone era of Katharine White; in her columns, reading and books are as ubiquitous and seductive as the screens of today. (She did, incidentally, like \u201cMake Way for Ducklings,\u201d calling it the \u201cperfect picture book for a Boston child but universal enough to appeal to anyone of picture-book age.\u201d) But White also understood that holding children\u2019s literature to high standards did not necessarily demand a highbrow approach. A column from 1939 considers Gertrude Stein\u2019s well-received foray into kid lit, \u201cThe World Is Round,\u201d which White found to be \u201cburied in tedious mannerisms and lumbering whimsy.\u201d She describes attempting to read it to her eight-year-old, who, by page 5, she wrote, \u201cbegan to wriggle, and very shortly after that, I regret to say, he got up quietly, slid over to the table, and picked up a copy of Time<\/em>.\u201d White doesn\u2019t specify which issue of the magazine it was\u2014maybe it was the Picasso cover, or perhaps the Paderewski\u2014but what I wouldn\u2019t give to have this problem. \u2666<\/p>\n

Read more How the Moroccan World Cup Team Became a Symbol of the Global South<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Winter on the children\u2019s-book author Mac Barnett, who said that most kid lit is \u201ccrud.\u201d But matters of literary quality don\u2019t explain why kids aren\u2019t reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-progress-report"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis - City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jessica Winter on the children\u2019s-book author Mac Barnett, who said that most kid lit is \u201ccrud.\u201d But matters of literary quality don\u2019t explain why kids aren\u2019t reading.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-12T13:08:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"12 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4\"},\"headline\":\"Why \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-12T13:08:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475\"},\"wordCount\":2369,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/e4edc500a9c1ec28942c7b6be4f2db1c.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Progress Report\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475\",\"name\":\"Why \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis - City Relocation News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/e4edc500a9c1ec28942c7b6be4f2db1c.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-12T13:08:06+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/e4edc500a9c1ec28942c7b6be4f2db1c.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/e4edc500a9c1ec28942c7b6be4f2db1c.webp\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":720},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=475#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"City Relocation News\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis - City Relocation News","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis - City Relocation News","og_description":"Jessica Winter on the children\u2019s-book author Mac Barnett, who said that most kid lit is \u201ccrud.\u201d But matters of literary quality don\u2019t explain why kids aren\u2019t reading.","og_url":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475","og_site_name":"City Relocation News","article_published_time":"2026-06-12T13:08:06+00:00","author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"12 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4"},"headline":"Why \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis","datePublished":"2026-06-12T13:08:06+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475"},"wordCount":2369,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/e4edc500a9c1ec28942c7b6be4f2db1c.webp","articleSection":["Progress Report"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475","url":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475","name":"Why \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis - City Relocation News","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/e4edc500a9c1ec28942c7b6be4f2db1c.webp","datePublished":"2026-06-12T13:08:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/e4edc500a9c1ec28942c7b6be4f2db1c.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/e4edc500a9c1ec28942c7b6be4f2db1c.webp","width":1280,"height":720},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=475#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why \u201cBook-Shaming\u201d Won\u2019t Solve the Children\u2019s Literacy Crisis"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/","name":"City Relocation News","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com"],"url":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}