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IELTS reading passage – Twist in the Tale
Twist in the Tale
The development of video games and the Internet were said to be the death knell for children’s books just a few short years ago. Teens may not be reading as much as they once were, but kids are really reading more now than ever before. Books Marketing conducted a poll and discovered that children up to the age of 11 spend four hours a week reading, with girls devoting even more time to the activity.
And the children’s book market has now stopped being looked down upon by its more prosperous and successful adult counterpart. New children’s books have become a lucrative commodity for publishing houses, and their authors are able to demand significant advances as a result. “Children’s books are going through an exceptionally productive phase,” says children’s literature analyst Wendy Cooling. ‘They’re creating quite a stir,’ people are saying. Kids’ authors are getting more attention, book clubs are thriving, and sales are up.
There’s little doubt that the market for kids from eight to fourteen has exploded thanks to the spectacled apprentice Harry Potter. To a large extent due to the popularity of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, reading is now seen as cool among pre-teens. According to Cooling, “Harry normalized” the act of reading aloud on public transportation. A young child would say something like, “that is significant.” The excitement about the upcoming release of the fourth Harry Potter book currently surpasses that surrounding any work of adult literature.
David Almond, the author of numerous acclaimed children’s novels including Skellig, says, “People still tell me, “Children don’t read nowadays.” In reality, they are highly able and imaginative readers. When I visit classrooms, the students always surprise me with their level of sophistication by asking me questions about language, plot, and character development. No one disputes that books face stiff competition from other entertainment options for kids, yet it appears that kids find a unique type of cerebral sustenance in the written page.
A few years ago, publishers lost confidence and tried to make books more like television, the medium that worried them the most,’ writes Julia Eccleshare, a critic of children’s literature. But books aren’t like television, and kids will tell you that the best part about reading is imagining the scenes. She claims that children are “demanding readers.” They’ll give up if they don’t understand it after two pages.
Nowadays, writers who specialize in works for children aren’t automatically written off as sentimentalists or failed novelists. Skellig was published in 1999 and sold 42,392 copies. “Some feted adult novelists would kill for the sales,” Almond adds. Likewise, it appears that advances are increasing: the United Kingdom’s Orion Publishing Group recently negotiated a six-figure fee with the American publishing house Scholastic for Kevin Crossley-novel Holland’s children’s The Seeing Stone.
When a child is interested in a product, they are loyal and often even passionate buyers. According to author Jacqueline Wilson, word of her works has spread among children like a firestorm. She elaborates, “My average reader is a girl of ten.” They like the company of others and are eager to expand their material possessions. They have parties where books are a popular gift idea because they collect them. People have an obligation to share things they find enjoyable. The past three years have seen a meteoric rise in sales for Wilson, making her the best-selling children’s author since Rowling. Though most ten-year-old girls are familiar with her, she is largely unknown to adults despite having sold over three million books.
Many classic works intended for young readers have startling relevance to the present. With proper caution, there are a few taboos while talking to kids. One gets the impression that authors writing for young readers have the freedom to explore whatever topic or language they choose. But award-winning children’s author Anne Fine worries that the British literati continue to disregard children’s culture. “It is worthy but boring,” she explains.
Almond, who hopes children’s books will one day be recognized for their literary merit, believes there is still work to be done. But he gets a lot of pleasure from the young readers he has. It’s due to their “strong literary culture,” he makes the claim. The big themes of love and loss, death and redemption are all explored, allowing you to “get into the storehouse of mythology and old legends that flow through all communities.”
The search for the next Harry Potter is underway. At this year’s Bologna Book Fair, the children’s version of Frankfurt’s Book Fair, competition for new titles was fiercer than anyone could have imagined. This is encouraging for the industry as a whole, and especially for children’s authors, who have had the least visibility in the literary world despite the weight of their responsibilities.
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Twist in the Tale Reading Questions
Questions 1-7
Look at the following list of people A-E and the list of statements (Questions 1-7). Match each statement with one of the people listed.Write the appropriate letters A-E in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
- If a child likes an author’s work, they will read more by that author.
- The demand for books written specifically for youngsters is increasing.
- Some of the most famous authors of adult fiction are unhappy with their salaries compared to those of their children’s book-writing counterparts.
- Today’s youth read significantly more than the general population believes they do.
- Book exchanges between kids are a source of delight.
- It doesn’t take long for kids to have strong opinions about books.
- Kids haven’t always felt safe reading aloud in public.
- Wendy Cooling
- David Almond
- Julia Eccleshare
- Jacqueline Wilson
- Anne Fine
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Questions 8-10
Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS taken from the reading passage, answer the following questions. Write your answers in boxes 8-10 on your answer sheet.
8. Who is the most popular author of children’s books right now?
9. Which publishing house has lately made a significant investment in a yet-to-be-published children’s book?
10. Which age group has seen the greatest increase in book sales?
Questions 11-14
Reading Passage has ten paragraphs A-J. Which paragraph mentions the following (Questions 11-14)? Write the appropriate letters (A-J) in boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet.
11. market effect of a popular kid-lit figure.
12. incorrectly predicted youth reading patterns.
13. the fact that young readers have a firm grasp of fiction’s fundamental building blocks.
14. society’s underestimation of kids.
Unlock your full potential in the IELTS Reading section – Visit our IELTS Reading Practice Question Answer page now!
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Twist in the Tale Reading Answers
1. D. Jacqueline Wilson
2. A. Wendy Cooling
3. B. David Almond
4. B. David Almond
5. D. Jacqueline Wilson
6. C. Julia Eccleshare7. A8. J.K. Rowling
9. Orion
10. 8-14 years/yrs/ (year-olds)
11. C
12. A
13. D
14. H
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