The United Kingdom recently concluded the National Storytelling Week. Established in 2000 by the Society of Storytelling, the annual event celebrates the power of stories.
The theme for 2026 is “Speaking Stories into the Darkness”. “We encourage everyone – storytellers, story lovers, story enthusiasts and those of you who are new to story – to take this week to immerse yourselves in telling, sharing and listening to stories,” stated the event’s official website.
Meanwhile, the National Literacy Trust designated this year’s theme as “Soundtrack your story”, highlighting artistic and community programs that explored “the magic of storytelling through sound, lyrics and rhythm”.
Specifically, the organisation’s research on children and young people’s reading shows that exploring stories through lyrics “can be an effective way to re-engage young people with reading for enjoyment and writing for pleasure”.
The National Storytelling Week marked a great start for the National Year of Reading 2026, a major initiative in the United Kingdom led by the Department of Education and the aforementioned National Literacy Trust. Launched in January, the campaign aims to reconnect people of all ages with reading as a relevant and rewarding activity.
“The campaign asks the nation to Go All In on their passions and interests and discover how reading can unlock the things they already love – be that music, football, baking, family-time, sci-fi, or… anything,” announced the official website.
The initiative could not be more timely. As The Guardian reports, reading is in crisis in the United Kingdom, with reading for pleasure among children and young adults being at its lowest level in 20 years. “Half of adults in the UK don’t read regularly themselves, and research shows that many parents don’t enjoy reading to their children.”
Other countries are experiencing the same profound decline in reading enjoyment. In Australia, recent data reveal that more than a quarter of Australians have not read or listened to a single book in the space of a year. One in three Australian children cannot read proficiently, and 29% of Australian teenagers are choosing not to read for pleasure at all.
In the United States, 40% of adult citizens did not read any book last year, compared to the median American who only read two books. It prompted ThriftBooks – one of the largest sellers of used books in that country – to launch the “500 Billion Page Challenge”, hoping to “help America fall back in love with reading”.
As ThriftBooks suggests: “Three pages a day is how a movement starts. If we all read just a little more, only a few pages a day, or a chapter before bed, we don’t just slow the decline. We reverse it.”
Particularly in these unusual and uncertain times, it is vital that we “speak stories into the darkness”. Let us connect with each other through stories and storytelling. Let us remain hopeful that open-mindedness and empathy can prevail over prejudice, bigotry and wilful ignorance.
Note: This article was originally titled “Speaking stories into the darkness” and was published under the title “Stories and their power” by Ranges Trader Star Mail, February 10, 2026, P.22.
Voices under the Sun 陽光下的聲音 