Forget the idea that there was ever a golden age when children reached for books ahead of any other form of entertainment or distraction: it didn’t exist, says Andy Griffiths, one of Australia’s most successful children’s authors, best-known for the Treehouse series.

“I grew up in the 1970s, we didn’t have computers or online, television [offerings were] few and far between, but we had bikes and all the freedom in the world,” says the punk rocker-turned-teacher-turned-novelist. “I always tell the kids it’s not an either-or, it’s both; all mediums have their strengths.”

Griffiths will speak to about 55,000 children on Wednesday about the joy of story-telling this week, as part of the State Library of Victoria’s Book Bash, an online event live-streamed to about 1000 primary schools across the state. On Thursday, author of When We Say Black Lives Matter and Fashionista Maxine Beneba Clarke will also run an online poetry workshop for students.

Designed by the library to inspire creativity, the Book Bash targets students in years three to six, whose literacy skills were most affected by lockdowns. “I go in and I tell them stories and I entertain them and I make them laugh, and the effect of that is usually to send them to the books afterwards because there’s plenty more where that came from,” says Griffiths.

The idea is to engage the kids, to provoke them, tease them, he says. “I’ll bring out toys – Godzillas, babies, pink carrots, whatever it takes to grab their attention. I’ll gently explain that they can use everyday objects around them and enjoy their own playful creativity. That’s my brief.”

Embracing the digital space is one of the silver linings of the pandemic, Griffiths says, that broader reach allowing access for students who would never otherwise have had the opportunity to hear from their favourite authors. Via Zoom, he can reach much larger audiences than would be possible physically. It’s a long way from the first Book Bash at the State Library, held in early 2020, about a week before the first lockdown, when on a rainy day, about 100-150 kids came into to see him speak.

Encouraging kids to read goes hand in hand with cultivating an interest in them telling stories of their own, according to Griffiths. “Often that’s the effect, if I get up and talk about how I can tell a story, the kids go, ‘I can do that!’”

Children tell each other stories all day at school, he says, but even so, when asked to write one, many go blank. He suggests they write something to a friend to get a rise out of them. “It doesn’t have to be a noble ambition. A lot of my early writing in the classroom was to annoy. I’d write outlandish, ridiculous stuff and they’d get cross with me – that’s mad, it makes no sense.”