For the Sake of Reading, We Cannot Afford Pretension
Author Gabbi Calabrese explains why writers and readers can’t afford pretension when it comes to reading…if the goal is more readers.
Dolly Parton said it best when she stated, “You can never get enough books into the hands of enough children.” While her devotion to promoting literacy is only a fraction of her transcendent and inimitable legacy, I believe it is one of the brightest torches left for all of us to carry.
Very few of us have the influence and resources that Dolly had, but we can at least have the passion. We can have conversations, and we can have an understanding of how crucial it is to continuously foster a love for reading, for children and beyond.
That said, in our current literary landscape, we cannot afford pretension. No matter how much we all wish to tout our superior taste, who does that serve?
In 2026, I have heard the term “literacy crisis” casually declared more than I ever have before. As someone deeply entrenched in various book communities, concern has undoubtedly been on the rise for years, but “literacy crisis” has breached containment. It’s not just publishing execs collecting data on readership anymore, or online hobbyists posting book reviews. Now, folks are talking about the literacy crisis in the TikTok comments of videos regaling recent dating mishaps, in online conversation threads about the best recipes after a long day of work, under posts about music, fashion, art, etc.
People are frustrated. Worried. Sad. Because when the world stops reading, the impact is so detrimental I cannot even begin to list the effects.
But the thing is, if we want people to read, people have to want to read.
Like many younger millennials (whether they admit it or not), I owe much of who I am today to Twilight. The night 11-year-old Gabbi cried herself to sleep because Edward Cullen wasn’t real was the night everything changed for me. I wasn’t much of a reader then, but I devoured over 2,000 pages like it was an appetizer at a Michelin star restaurant. And then I did it again, and then I thought, Hmmm, maybe there are other stories out there that are as good as this.
Fast forward 20 years, I have multiple degrees dedicated to books, a job that pays me to edit books, and two books of my own entering the world! Of course, I have to believe that if it hadn’t been Twilight that dazzled me, it would have been one of the many other novels I have fallen in love with since then. But that means I would have had to wait even longer to connect with literature on such a rewiring-my-brain-chemistry level.
I was not a Little Bookworm myself, but I wish I were. I wish I entered middle school having cavorted with demigods at Camp Half Blood or broken the curse the Witch of the Waste had cast on me. I was not a Little Bookworm myself, but my primary goal now is to help readers find the books they want to read as soon as possible.
Is Twilight the best-written book I’ve ever read? Well, needless to say, that’s subjective, but I’m sure there’s a whole gaggle of folks clambering to list all the reasons that book isn’t worth reading. Again I ask, who does that serve? How does that help anything? I read it eight times, and I’m doing all right because of it rather than in spite of it—and so are the likely-millions of people who learned to love literature because of a sparkly vampire.
That’s not to say any book is above criticism, or people can’t have their own taste, or that analysis isn’t a crucial part of literacy. But there can sometimes be a fine line between the criticism of a book and the criticism of a reader. If we make people feel bad about what they are choosing to read, they likely won’t read other things. They will simply stop reading.
I often think about the years following my vampiric awakening (vampiric book awakening, that is). To this day, I consider the 2010’s YA paranormal romance era truly peak, and the endorphins I got from gobbling up every cheesy, supernatural story I could find will never be replicated. What I always come back to, though, are the days when my dad would see what I was reading, scoff, and ask, “Why don’t you read something useful? Imagine if you decided to read a law or medicine book or something.”
I would not imagine because I could not imagine. I would have never picked up a book again before I picked up the type of book he thought I should be reading. He has since apologized, stating he never would have guessed I’d end up making books my career. However, it shouldn’t matter whether I monetized my hobby or not. I was reading about love triangles and immortal beings because it was fun, and reading can and should be fun, whatever that means to every reader.
More recently, I can’t help but get defensive when folks belittle the era of BookTok readers. It’s a community I’m knowledgeable about because I have to be for work, but it is not a community I am personally involved in. I do not read many of the BookTok sensations, I do not actively seek out BookTok content. Still, I know what kind of heinous remarks are being made in the comments and in the real world.
Check out Gabbi Calabrese's Little Bookworm: Fantasy Worlds here:
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Who gets to decide what real reading is? Who gets to decide what valuable reading is? Instead, we could try being excited that a whole new wave of readers are creating community and finding some reprieve from many of the terrors of adulthood. There’s no such thing as too old or too young to find the bliss of books. For me it was Twilight that sealed the deal, but you just never know what book it will be for someone.
At the end of the day, that is the heart of my Little Bookworm series, and the foundation of what I hope to give the literary community as a whole. Escapism, community, and joy. They are a tool and an opportunity for grown ups to share their favorite tales with their favorite little ones, to teach them the magic of story, and to facilitate a lifelong love of literature.
Reading is often seen as a solo passion, but in actuality it is so much larger than any one person. It is a passion meant to be shared, meant to be cultivated, and meant to be enjoyable. And I cannot think of a better time to start instilling that in children than right away.
Check out Gabbi Calabrese's Little Bookworm Mystery here:
