Moroccan TikTok Star Gains 1.5 Million Followers Recommending Children’s Books

Maryam Assakat has become one of the most viral literary influencers on social media. She works during the day in a bookstore in Parcir de Manresa and in the evening, she recommends children’s books to her more than a million and a half subscribers on TikTok. In her ’Booktok’, video capsules of barely a minute that she publishes daily on the social network, she talks about books and her work. "Half like this kind of section. They take the book and appreciate it because their favorite booktoker recommended it to them. But there are also others who don’t really know the platform and think that if a book has gone viral, it’s because it has cliché content," explains the 22-year-old woman to Nius.

Maryam confesses that children’s books are the best-selling ones. "The reading boom among young people appeared during the pandemic," she details, adding that several contemporary bestsellers are aimed at this type of audience. "There was a time when young people thought reading was outdated. Now, there is a big difference." But despite this enthusiasm for children’s books, Maryam deplores the fact that the elderly do not care about what young people read and are quick to criticize. "When they see that the ’Booktok’ books are recommended, they think that because it becomes viral, it doesn’t matter and that seems bad to me, because you can’t judge without knowing," she says.

"Now we have TikTok, but twenty or thirty years ago, we bought a book because it had been recommended in the newspaper. [...] There has simply been this change in technology and people are reluctant because the book has made this digital change," criticizes Maryam, who is delighted to have created a kind of virtual reading club thanks to her Booktok. "It’s something very comforting because you post a video thinking it will only be seen by one person, but you see interactions, people commenting or writing to you about it and it becomes something very beautiful," declares the bookseller, who believes she is doing useful work because these reading recommendations lead parents to buy books for their children.

Maryam Assakat interviewed by a local Catalan channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDOzmh_6Fdk