On Thursday 16th April, Homerton College will welcome award-winning author Juno Dawson to give The Philippa Pearce Lecture 2026, this year titled 'The Death of Reading for Pleasure and How to Prevent It'.
Ahead of her visit to Homerton, the novelist, screenwriter, and journalist —author of Clean, Meat Market, This Book Is Gay, and the adult fantasy trilogy Her Majesty’s Royal Coven—took a break from her busy schedule to chat with Homerton Communications Officer, Emily, about all things books.
"A great novel can make you feel deeply. It can challenge you, move you, and expand your understanding of other people’s lives in a way that platforms like Instagram or TikTok don’t always achieve.
So I think reading matters—not just culturally, but socially. It plays an important role in shaping empathy and understanding, and it would be a real shame to give up on it." - Juno Dawson
Hi Juno, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us today. Your Philippa Pearce Lecture is titled ‘The Death of Reading for Pleasure and How to Prevent It’. Can you tell us what reading for pleasure means to you, and why it’s so important that we protect it as a pleasurable activity?
I chose this title for my talk for two main reasons, really. The first is the statistics released last year, showing that fewer than one in five teenagers now read for pleasure, and only about half of adults do. That represents a steep decline—it almost feels like reading is in freefall.
The second reason is more personal. This year, I returned to writing YA fiction for the first time in five years, and I realised something quite unsettling: I’m not sure I know how to do it anymore. It feels as though I don’t quite know how to do my job when so few young people are actively choosing to read for fun. I don’t know how to reach them—I don’t know how to encourage them to pick up a book.
So in a way, I’m giving this talk as much for myself as for the audience. I want to find the answer. I don’t know if I have it, but perhaps together we can begin to figure it out.
For me, reading for pleasure has always felt like watching a film in your head. But unlike a film you see at the cinema or on TV, this is one you direct—you cast it, shape it, and bring it to life. It’s entirely yours. There’s something incredibly intimate about creating a world inside your own mind.
I feel very lucky to have been born with that ability, because I’ve spoken to people who don’t experience it in the same way. Some people struggle to create those internal worlds. But I believe there are many others who do have this gift—who are capable of imagining extraordinary things—but simply aren’t exercising it.
And perhaps that’s part of the issue. Imagination isn’t something we’re really using on social media. Social media does many things, but I don’t think it actively nurtures or strengthens the imagination.
Do you think then that social media has contributed to the decline of reading for pleasure, or is there a way it could be used as a tool to prevent this decline?
Again, I can only speak for myself, but I know that social media has absolutely affected what I read. Last December, when many of my author colleagues were sharing their top ten reads of the year, I found myself wondering: had I even read ten books? Honestly, I wasn’t sure. And if I had, most of that reading probably happened while I was on holiday—away from work and everyday distractions.
I think part of the issue is that social media is so passive. You’re simply staring at a screen, allowing images to wash over you. In some ways, it feels easier than reading, because it doesn’t demand much mental effort. You’re not being asked to build anything in your mind, to engage in that kind of imaginative architecture. So I’m just as susceptible to it as anyone else.
Because of that, I’ve had to set very strict boundaries for myself. Social media was genuinely affecting my sleep, and I believe there’s research to support that.
Practically speaking, I’ve made a few changes. I no longer take my phone into the bathroom, because that’s where I often do my reading. I also don’t allow myself to look at my phone in bed. This year, I made a resolution to read for 15 to 20 minutes every night before going to sleep, and during that time I don’t go on TikTok or Instagram.
I realise that, in many ways, what I’m asking young people to do is simply to put their phones down. But that’s incredibly difficult, especially when we consider what we’re up against. There have been major court cases in the United States highlighting how companies like Meta and Google have designed their platforms to be deliberately addictive.
So that’s the reality: we’re asking people to step away from something engineered to keep them hooked. The challenge, then, is how we help them do something different—how we guide them back towards reading in a way that feels just as compelling.
Talking about how reading makes you feel, can you remember when you first fell in love with books, and how do you think that feeling compares to the experiences of young readers today?
I was incredibly fortunate to grow up in a family that truly valued books, and I do think that’s one of the most powerful tools we have in countering the pull of social media. Thinking back to my childhood, I was very lucky. My grandparents read to me, my mum read to me, my dad read to me—books were a central part of my daily routine, especially at bedtime. I do remember, though, that because I learned to read quite early, my parents stopped reading to me as soon as I could read independently. And actually, having worked as a teacher, that’s something I wouldn’t necessarily encourage. There’s something incredibly powerful about having an adult perform a book for you. In a way, it links to the appeal of audiobooks, and perhaps why they’ve become so popular.
I also remember the joy of being allowed to read in bed at night. As a child, staying up later was a treat—but being allowed to stay up to read felt like a kind of cheat code. I couldn’t believe I was getting away with it, just so long as I had a book in my hands.
And I think the real question is: how do we get back to that feeling? Because what we’re asking now isn’t just a lot from young readers—we’re also asking a great deal from parents.
As well as parents or guardians then, what role do you think schools play in shaping a love of reading—and in some cases, how might they unintentionally limit it?
I know this from personal experience, because I’m a Sunday Times Bestselling Author who dropped English at the first possible opportunity. I gave it up at 16, after my GCSEs, and that was because I didn’t genuinely associate English with reading.
For me, reading was something enjoyable. It was something I chose for myself. I could pick my own books, lose myself in stories, and imagine life as a teenage girl—something I wasn’t always able to do as a trans person in real life. But then I’d go into my English classes, and we’d be assigned these very dry texts that I struggled to connect with. I couldn’t see myself in them. They often felt distant and unrelatable—old, “dusty” books, frequently written by men. In fact, To Kill a Mockingbird was probably the only book by a female author that I read in high school. It felt bleak.
So I do think there’s a real role for both primary and secondary schools in making reading irresistible—and “irresistible” is a word I keep coming back to.
When I was a teacher, I really tried to do that. I chose texts that I believed my students would genuinely love. For example, I taught Noughts & Crosses to my Year 6 class—which, admittedly, might have been a little mature—but they loved it. They were completely obsessed. And that’s the point. We’re asking a lot—not just of young readers, but of parents as well. And I think it’s right that we also ask more of educators.
We have a responsibility to make reading a real competitor to everything online. A huge part of that—and something that cannot be emphasised enough—is the importance of having a school library in every school, staffed by a librarian. A trained professional whose job is to know books, to understand trends, and to guide young readers.
Teachers are already overworked and underpaid. So imagine if every school also had a specialist who could say, “If you enjoyed The Hunger Games, then you’ll love Survival Show by Juno Dawson.” That kind of tailored recommendation can make all the difference, and yet, that isn’t the reality in every school.
At Homerton College we're obviously part of the University of Cambridge and, for many of our students, this will involve a lot of academic reading. For students at Cambridge, or indeed anywhere around the world, who may feel that they've lost some of the joy of reading, where would you recommend they start to rediscover it?
When I was at university, I always made a point of having a novel on the go—something completely separate from what I was supposed to be reading. I was probably a bit lucky in that I was studying for a science degree, so most of my academic reading involved skimming abstracts.
In fact, I got a first-class degree largely by skimming abstracts—it can be done! But alongside that, I always had a novel. It became part of my routine, and once that routine is in place, reading becomes much more sustainable.
That said, there was no social media when I was at university, which makes a big difference. Now, it’s the same question every evening: when you get into bed, are you scrolling, or are you setting aside 20 minutes to read a novel?
What BookTok does incredibly well is its algorithm. In a slightly spooky way, it seems to understand your taste. I tend to enjoy slightly unusual, feminine horror—what I’d call “weird, girly horror”—and I’m constantly being recommended books that fit that niche perfectly. It’s not just suggesting books; it’s suggesting very specific books that I’m likely to love.
So I think, as industry professionals in publishing, we have to meet this technology halfway. It would be a bit snobbish to say, “books are good, social media is bad,” because there’s real potential here—something we can actually harness. That’s certainly how I approach my own social media.
It’s not going to be easy, but I do genuinely believe this: there is a type of novel out there for everyone.
You must be so busy now, being a bestselling author. Do you have much time to enjoy reading for pleasure? You mentioned you get recommended books on BookTok - what are you reading at the moment?
One of the great perks of being an author is that you get sent a lot of free books, which is a wonderful thing. In fact, I receive more books than I really know what to do with.
At the moment, I’m reading a new novel by a friend of mine. It’s out at the beginning of next month, and it’s called Whatever Happened to Madeleine Stone? by Louise O'Neill, who is an incredible Irish writer.
It’s a sharp satire of early noughties teen culture, centred around a pair of twins—very much in the mould of Mary-Kate and Ashley—who become entangled in a mystery after one of them dies a suspicious death… or did she?
So, to summarise ahead of next week’s event, why do you think this conversation is particularly urgent for 2026 and the world we're living in now, and what do you hope that audiences at Homerton College will leave your lecture thinking or doing differently?
I think it would be tempting to say, “Well, if young people aren’t interested in reading, why don’t we just let it die?” Why are we trying to force something in the same way I was forced to do PE all through school? Spoiler: it didn’t stick.
But interestingly, something did stick—because once I discovered yoga, Pilates, and going to the gym on my own, I realised I actually love exercise. I love the endorphins, the sense of achievement. It wasn’t that I disliked exercise; it was that I’d been taught it in the wrong way—and, frankly, forced into activities that didn’t suit me. But that’s a whole other conversation.
I think the same is true of reading. We shouldn’t give up just because the statistics look bleak. That doesn’t mean we throw our hands up and say, “Fine, let’s just let everyone scroll on social media instead.”
And I think that for a couple of important reasons.
Firstly, there’s research that shows that reading increases empathy. Novels, in particular, play a powerful role in helping us see the world from someone else’s perspective.
I’m not sure the same can be said for social media. It’s often a much more passive experience. And if you look at certain corners of the internet—if you know anything about the so-called “manosphere”—you’ll see that people are being influenced, and sometimes radicalised, in ways that are genuinely concerning.
A great novel, on the other hand, can make you feel deeply. It can challenge you, move you, and expand your understanding of other people’s lives in a way that platforms like Instagram or TikTok don’t always achieve.
So I think reading matters—not just culturally, but socially. It plays an important role in shaping empathy and understanding, and it would be a real shame to give up on it.
That’s what I hope this lecture will do. I want us to move towards practical solutions. Maybe it’s a very northern, pragmatic mindset, but I’m less interested in just identifying problems—I want to find answers.
So ideally, we’ll leave the lecture feeling energised rather than discouraged. That’s the goal, anyway.
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Sign up for the 2026 Philippa Pearce Lecture here: Eventbrite
