This week, the girlies are armed with their No. 2 pencils to ask: what's the current state of literacy, how did we get here, and are the kids okay??? They unpack how we went from clay tablets to BookTok fairy smut and trace how phonics, poverty, and the policy failures of the Bush administration shaped how we learn to read. Digressions include Zohran Mamdani socialist prom, the power of drawing portals, and empathy for Travis Kelce. This episode was produced by Julia Hava and Eliza McLamb and edited by Allison Hagan. Research assistance from Kylie Finnigan. We're going on tour!!!! Find tickets at https://linktr.ee/binchtopia SOURCES: A Brief History of Summer Reading A Chapter a Day – Association of Book Reading with Longevity A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel American Children's Reading Skills Reach New Lows America's literacy crisis isn't what you think Ancient customer-feedback technology lasts millennia Are men's reading habits truly a national crisis? BookTok: A new era in the history of reading BookTok Statistics BookTok: The Dark Horse of the Economy Can Reading Make You Happier? Children and young people's reading in 2025 Exploring BookTok's impact on literature How BookTok is Reviving the Era of Physical Bookselling How is the popularity of BookTok impacting the publishing industry? How Literacy Became a Powerful Weapon in the Fight to End Slavery How One Woman Became the Scapegoat for America's Reading Crisis How the Second World War Made America Literate How TikTok Became a Best-Seller Machine Introduction to the Original Edition Literacy and History Illiteracy: "Another form of slavery" Literacy Rate in the US 2025: Top Picks National Reading Panel - Teaching Children to Read No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 No Child Left Behind: An Overview Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed at Fifty PEDAGOGY of the OPPRESSED by Paolo Freire Report finds 'shocking and dispiriting' fall in children reading for pleasure Share of TikTok users reading more books because of #BookTok in the United States as of May 2023, by state School Summer Reading Lists: A Brief and Nerdy History Sold a Story Soldiers Literacy Training Collection The History of Summer Reading The Influence of BookTok on Literary Criticisms and Diversity The Invention of Summer Reading and the Birth of the Beach Read The Literacy Crisis in the U.S. is Deeply Concerning—and Totally Preventable The Nation's Report Card The Rise and Fall of Vibes-Based Literacy The Subversive Joy of BookTok This is how much the global literacy rate grew over 200 years Why I Won't Quit BookTok
