Self-confessed reluctant reader as a kid, Aaron Topp is a Hawke's Bay-based author of adventure novels for young readers..

He got in touch with us after seeing the trailer for our new Blokes vs Books campaign and we asked him to write something for our blog about his own work in spreading a love for reading.

I know first-hand the fight for attention a book has to deal with, particularly in this busy and tech heavy world we live in. As you know, I spend a lot of my time during the Writers in Schools discussing this topic, particularly with teenage males.

Back in 2017 the New Zealand Book Council released a well overdue and insightful report about the state of Kiwis' reading habits. Inside I was not surprised to read the biggest demographic of non-readers were young men, in particular those teenage guys who'd rather be doing a hundred other things than sitting down with a book.

The reluctant reader is generally forgotten about, except by the college librarians and teachers who never stop trying to inspire them every day. Just one book a year can make a huge difference to a teenage male's outlook and establish an essential cognitive building block for their future. How do I know? Because once upon a time I was one of those guys. Did I have to read it? If you want to pass this year, yes. So I did. Reluctantly.

But man, those teachers are a clever bunch. They weren’t making me read this stuff to just tick boxes. They chose these literary gems because they knew. They knew despite the look of disdain I was probably giving, thirty years later the words from those pages would still be sparkling in my subconscious. How else do I explain how I remember God Boy’s Jimmy running his hands under boiling hot water to take away the pain of conflict? My first experience of senior men’s rugby at the age of sixteen thanks to Foreskin’s Lament? Staying gold with a bunch of Outsiders? Forced to eat a loved one somewhere in the middle of the Andes in Alive? I typically don’t remember stuff these days, but truth is these books and so many more aren’t found in my memory banks anyway, they’re entwined in the essence of who I am.

And this is the message I speak about to teens during Read NZ’s Writers in Schools initiative, particularly to the guys who have that same look I remember so well. Books aren’t like watching a movie – you don’t learn to watch a movie first, but you sure have to learn to read first. That means they’ve invested in something first, done the hard yards, and now opened a door to betterment. It’s a beautiful piece of rewiring they’ve done on themselves. That’s why books are so much more endearing. Many of these young blokes simply just don’t know it yet.

When I first started out writing, I made it my primary goal to target the 'reluctant reader'. Writing about the hundred other things these teens would rather be doing might not be as sexy to a publisher as the high selling dystopian or sci fi or fantasy genres, but the feedback I get from librarians and teachers is that reluctant readers want to read about the same stuff they are doing in their spare time. Something they can relate to. To keep the stoke going. Which is great, because I’d rather be writing about that stuff too.

So who’s nailing this issue well? Napier Boys High School has just launched their Year 9 reading challenge and it was done with one heck of a punch. Members of their First XV stood up on stage and spoke about books that had inspired them. Then the ‘challenge’ was explained using a mixture of accessible tech and the library list and achievable goals for each Year 9. And the knockout blow, rewards of food vouchers or going away with the different First Teams during interschool matches and being an honouree member of the team for that weekend. It is empowering, it involves all factions of the school community and most importantly it sets an expectation to every new pupil at Napier Boys that reading is taken seriously here lads.

Well done Read NZ Te Pou Muramura and the NZ Society of Authors for teaming up to tackle this national issue. The payback for our communities and culture is going to be enormous.

Kia ora, Aaron!

Check out the Blokes vs Books campaign on YouTube here.