"what the children need is good textbooks at the moment" or "what the children need are good textbooks at the moment"?

Question

In the following sentence:

What the remote areas need __ education to children and what the children need __ good textbooks at the moment.

Should I fill both in with "is"? If I see "what..." as a singular.

Or should I fill the blanks in with "is" and "are" if I choose my verbs by referring what's coming after?

@ Astralbee , I think mine is different from this, as I am asking whether viewing "what..."" as a singular subject or its singularity depending on the noun referred by "what" — HypnoticBuggyWraithVirileBevy, Dec 07 '20 at 11:56
You use "is" with singular nouns and "are" with plural nouns. "Textbooks" is plural, so it's "are". That simple. — Astralbee, Dec 07 '20 at 21:08
This is a really basic question, there's no evidence of research, and there are multiple questions on this subject already on SE. https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/96368/the-series-is-or-the-series-are-plural-or-singular — Astralbee, Dec 07 '20 at 21:09

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 07 '20 at 16:02

You should choose "is" and "are". Specifically the second clause should be,

what the children need are good textbooks.

Grammarphobia blog

When “what” is the subject of the clause (and the same is true of “all”), it agrees in number — singular or plural — with the complement (as we said, the word or phrase that completes the sentence).

"what the children need is good textbooks at the moment" or "what the children need are good textbooks at the moment"?

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