Eagle County residents are bucking the national downturn in reading, for now

Sarah L. Stewart
January 2, 2008

Keith Davis has traversed the wilds of Cuba and witnessed the political turmoil in parts of South America. He journeys not as Keith Davis, Vail Valley resident and retired orthodontist, but as Doc Ford, a marine biologist-turned-CIA operative and the main character in his favorite fictional series by Randy Wayne White.

“I tend to kind of enjoy becoming that person while I’m reading the book,” says Davis, who sees a bit of his own adventurous spirit in his literary hero.

Davis reads two to three (mostly nonfiction) books a month, a hobby he says has broadened his perspective and made him a more open-minded person.

But a recent report by the National Endowment for the Arts reveals that Davis and other avid readers are in the minority nationwide.

The report showed that fewer than half of adults had read a work of literature — a novel, short story, play or poem — within the past year. Americans ages 15 to 34 spend just seven to 10 minutes per day reading voluntarily. The percentage of 17-year-olds who read for fun on a daily basis dropped nearly a third from 1984 to 2004.

So what about Eagle County? Census figures indicate we have a more educated population than the nation as a whole, and as a result, we might like to think of ourselves as more literate than the average community. But does that make us immune to the national decline in reading?

Not immune, it seems, but at least less affected.

“I think throughout Eagle County there’s a pretty strong readership,” says Stephen Bedford, general manager of the Bookworm in Edwards. “I think our store’s a good reflection of that.”

Within the past year, the Bookworm moved to a space that more than tripled its size, from 700 to 2,200 square feet. To Bedford, that’s evidence that reading is alive and well among Eagle County residents.

Though many of his customers are occupied with other things, he says, “they’re still plowing through the books.”

A part of the culture
The Eagle Valley Library District’s circulation numbers support Bedford’s observation that the county may be bucking the national trend. The district’s circulation, or total number of books borrowed per year, grew 34 percent from 2001 to 2006, from 278,434 to 371,831. Even factoring in the population growth during that time, the number of books checked out per Eagle County resident climbed from 6.2 annually to 7.3.

“I think that people out there are reading,” says Sharyn Smith, who oversees reference and adult services at the Eagle Library. “I want to think that people are still reading.”

Smith attributes some of the valley’s literary dedication to the popularity of book clubs like the one she’s been a part of for more than 15 years.

The book clubs — the Bookworm has 70 to 80 on file — offer social interaction in addition to literary discussions. Robert Aikens, owner of Verbatim Booksellers in Vail Village, has one customer, a second-home owner, who flies people to the valley for his book club meetings.

“I really enjoy the people that come,” Smith says of her club. “They all have a different viewpoint on the same book.”

Next-generation readers
Ten-year-old Mariah Davis seems to be modeling her father, Keith Davis’s, book-loving ways, if the essay that won her a collector’s set of Harry Potter books from the Bookworm is any indication.

“In a well-written piece of writing I can almost hear the author’s voice,” Mariah wrote in the essay titled, “How Reading Has Impacted My Life.” “I will come home from a challenging day at school, and then sink into a book, and my bad feelings will disappear.”

Fifth-grade Mariah is at the cusp of the age group that nationwide has recorded the steepest decline in reading of any age group: teenagers. But if scores on the reading portion of the 2007 Colorado Student Assessment Program test are any measure, Eagle County teenagers seem to be following the example of their more-literate parents.

Nearly every middle and high school in the county surpassed the state average for the percentage of Anglo students scoring proficient or better on the test; for Hispanic students, about half of the schools did the same.

Judging by some observations, however, Eagle County teens may not be reading as avidly as the generally positive test scores might imply.

Colleen Gray, executive director of The Literacy Project of Eagle County, has noticed that the children who participate in her organization’s Study Friends, a tutoring program for struggling middle-school students, are farther behind in their reading than in the past. This year, many of the students have entered Study Friends two grade levels below where they should be in reading, Gray says, instead of the more typical one-year deficit seen in previous years.

“I think it makes our tutors’ job a little bit harder,” she says. “It’s definitely going to make it harder for (the students) to keep up.”

Smith says she doesn’t see a lot of high school students at the public library — so whether they’re getting their information from at school, the Internet, or not at all is anyone’s guess.

“It is because kids are so busy,” Smith says. “There isn’t much reading time left over.”

Evolution of reading
Even in a county with a solid foundation of adult readers, changes in reading patterns are taking place. Time might be the biggest obstacle to leisure reading, with so many of us preoccupied with work, family and outdoor activities, Gray says.

Busy adults have turned increasingly to audio books, Smith says, which fit into their commuting schedules better than a traditional book.

“People are getting their information and reading in different ways,” she says.
But at least they are still reading.

“If you can read, you can do anything,” Smith says. “That’s why I think it’s so important for everyone to learn to read well.”