Children in the UK are not reading enough at home, favouring television and computer games instead, according to new research.
The survey conducted earlier this month by Nestlé Box Tops for Books, which asked parents about their children’s reading habits, found that half of UK children spend less than two hours reading per week. A further one in 10 had not read a book in the past month, and of those who do read regularly, one in four avoid non- fiction titles. More than half of the parents surveyed believed their children should read more non-fiction books.
"It is essential that young children read at least one book a week and, in particular, educational books," said family counsellor Jenni Trent Hughes.
But others believe such a stern approach to reading may not help children. "We can turn children off it by simply saying it’s something they must be doing," said Amelia Foster, who runs Reading Connects for the National Literacy Trust, an organisation that encourages reading for pleasure to enhance classroom achievement.
Ms Foster said the survey results might not give children enough credit. Previous studies have found that 75% of 11 to 18-year-olds enjoyed reading, and 83% read in their spare time.
Past reading surveys have found distinct differences in the reading habits of boys and girls. Girls tend to be more enthusiastic about reading in general, but particularly fiction (perhaps helping to explain why Jacqueline Wilson, author of Sleepovers and Bad Girls, is the most borrowed author from public libraries), while boys are drawn to books about a place, subject, or hobby that interests them.
Nicola Davies, author of Poo: A Natural History of the Unmentionable, said while working with underachieving boys she found they responded to non-fiction better than fiction. "You can get them to write poetry but they won’t read it," she said.
Ms Davies would like to see children’s non-fiction take off in the way adult non-fiction has in recent years, thanks largely to titles like Longitude that employ strong narratives. This may encourage boys to read more, she said.
"There’s a lot of really crap non-fiction out there. It’s absolute ’paint by numbers, pile them high, and sell them cheap’. But it’s not really addressing the issue. Non-fiction as it is cutting off a whole route into reading, especially for boys," added Ms Davies.
But the consequences of these trends may run deeper. Some worry that steering clear of non-fiction may effect the development of a child’s imagination, even going so far as to impact their future career choices.
Nicola Jones credits her choice of studying zoology at university to her childhood Encyclopedia Britannica. "There was this fantastic bit in the back on transparencies of human bodies, and it absolutely fired my imagination about the workings of the human body. Children’s imagination needs all sorts of fuel. And that’s what’s going to drive them, give them intrinsic motivation. It’s what makes your intellectual cars go." For this reason Ms Jones is planning a conference next year that will address how non-fiction can be transformed into something more children will want to read.
What’s the difference between girls and boys in their reading habits

America’s enlightened attitude to corporate bankruptcy is designed to put economic resources back to productive use as quickly as possible. This means distinguishing between potentially viable companies and terminally ill ones. The potentially viable can file for "’Chapter 11", which lets them restructure under court supervision. The terminally ill can file for "Chapter 7". which focuses on liquidating their assets and distributing them among creditors. It also means putting pressure on the courts to deal with bankruptcy as quickly as possible. Chrysler and General Motors were both in the hands of "new owners" within 45 days of filing for bankruptcy. It also means treating bankrupts relatively leniently, not as sinners to be flagellated but rather as unfortunates who should be given a second chance.America’s generosity to capitalism’s losers has served it remarkably well. It has not only prevented companies such as United Airlines and General Motors from going into premature liquidation, throwing thousands of people out of work. It has also helped provide America with its entrepreneurial edge. Bankruptcy is an occupational hazard for entrepreneurs: even those with plenty of business experience under their belts fail much more often than they succeed. America’s leniency towards bankrupts encourages novices to start their own businesses and allows people who have failed to start again.
The good news is that a growing number of countries arc following America’s lead. Britain has introduced a succession of Enterprise Acts since 2002 that are designed to make it easier for failed entrepreneurs to start new businesses. The credit crunch has speeded up the pace of reform. The World Bank’s annual "Doing Business" report provides a wealth of examples of improvements. Many governments are trying to shake up their lethargic legal systems in order to speed up bankruptcy proceedings. The reforms also touch upon the more fundamental question of trying to save viable businesses from premature liquidation. Dozens of countries are trying to give companies more opportunities to reorganise before they finally reach for the revolver. France and Germany were among the first to do this. But the idea has also spread to Eastern Europe and Asia and may even be reaching the bankruptcy-averse Muslim world (last year ten Middle Eastern and North African countries signed a joint declaration on planned reforms).
Moving towards a more enlightened treatment of bankruptcy will not be easy, particularly for poor countries with inefficient legal systems and retributive attitudes to debt. The World Bank reports that the majority of reforms have taken place in rich countries= since 2004, 59% of them have improved their systems compared with 33% of poorer countries in East Asia, 22% in Latin America, 16%, in the Middle East and 13% in South Asia. And poorer countries have an enormous distance to travel. In rich countries, bankruptcy proceedings take less than two years on average. In South Asia they take an average of four-and-a-half years. In many countries — Turkey is a notorious example — legal fees can eat up almost all the value of a business.
It beats flagellation.Attitudes to debt are also difficult to change. America threw off the old world’s hostility to failed businessmen along with British rule. Back in the 1830s one of the things that most struck Alexis de Tocqueville about the country was "the strange indulgence which is shown to bankrupts", which, he said, diverged "not only from the nations of Europe, but from all the commercial nations of our time. " The generous provisions of Chapter 11 only reinforced a longstanding legal prejudice. In 1934, for example, the Supreme Court declared that bankruptcy laws ought to "give the honest but unfortunate debtor.., a new opportunity in life and a clear field for future effort unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of pre-existing debt."
True, giving a clear field to the honest but unfortunate also opens the way to all sorts of chances. America’s generous treatment of corporate bankrupts has been widely abused by common spendthrifts — so much so that Congress tightened the taw in 2005 to restrict access to the system. Britain’s attempt to emulate the American example has also led to an epidemic of freeloading. In 2006 only about a quarter of the people who filed for bankruptcy could remotely be described as entrepreneurs.
That is irritating, but governments should nevertheless continue to rehabilitate bankruptcy. Making it easier to close a business may not sound as inviting as announcing yet another "enterprise fund" or "innovation initiative" , but it is more vital to reviving the world’s moribund economy. In the short term enlightened bankruptcy laws reduce unemployment by keeping viable companies alive. In the longer term they boost rates of entrepreneurship. The best way to get more people to start businesses is to make it easier to wind them up.

[A] More people in the area.
B. Noise and motorways.
C. Waste of land.
D. Unnecessary travel.