by Fiona Ingram

I don’t remember actually learning to read; it’s as if I always did. Although we grew up poor (five children to feed, clothe, and educate), my parents always had books in the house. And then of course, there were the books we inherited from my grandparents. My very old copy of The Wind in the Willows, with those simple yet beautiful illustrations, is still on my bookshelf. Ratty and Mole were my heroes (and still are!). Other old friends are The Secret Garden, with exquisite color plates, The Water Babies, Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree series, my collection of the Lucy Fitch Perkins’ twin series, with her poignant stories of children of all eras and places around the world. I particularly loved Anne of Avonlea, The Little Princess and many others.

The list of children’s classics is endless and not so long ago I read them all over again. I ‘inherited’  a  foster child from a disadvantaged background. This little girl came to me at age eleven, practically illiterate, scoring only 19% for English at school. Opening the doors into the wonderful world of books seemed insurmountable because she simply did not understand the connection between the written and spoken word. What to do? Begin at the beginning seemed a good idea.

I started off with my old favourites and Mabel loved them. Suddenly, the words were not frightening because she was hearing about places and people she’d never imagined. She’d lean over my shoulder, breathing down my neck as I read, my finger tracing the words as I sounded them out. The pages began to surrender the magical words, and she found them enchanting! Fired with success, we moved onto the rest of the library, slowly devouring my children’s classic book collection in very tiny bite-sized pieces. I was still doing most of the reading.

One day, Mabel decided she’d help out with the books, and began reading to me. It was still incredibly slow but I began to see the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. We got movies of books, watched them, and then read the books, just in case the moviemakers had left out some important bits. We expanded our repertoire book by book. I found other ways to sneak words into her day, not just when we were doing ‘serious’ reading. She read recipes with me when we baked; she read the instructions on the packaging to me while we prepared dinner; she read advertisements to me when we shopped. Suddenly words were a constant part of her life.

Mabel also began to show her imaginative side at school. Her poems and creative writing pieces began to change, reflecting more color, bigger words, more complex themes and emotions. What a breakthrough! The final moment of success came when just recently she turned to my mother and said, “Gran, will you buy me a book?”

My mother nearly fell off her chair and replied, “You can have as many as you like, darling.”

Mabel grinned. “Oh, then can you buy me all the Twilight books please?” Thank you Stephenie Meyer for being the first author Mabel ‘owns.’ (Apparently vampires rock.)

Her latest ‘own’ books? Inkheart, and The Golden Compass.

Her latest marks for English? A magnificent 75%.

“I can do much better,” she said, frowning. “I’m going to have to improve on this if I want to be a writer.”

I have now adopted Mabel, not having my own children, and I can say the greatest compliment is that she has decided to become a journalist or a novelist (just like me).

Recently I called her and, hearing her voice coming from her bedroom, asked, “What are you doing?”

Reply: “I’m reading!”

Music to any parent’s ears!

by Merle Dieterich, mother of Marvin and Lerato,  loves books,  yoga,  playing a special board game ( The Settlers of Catan) and  is passionate about her business,   Jozikids.co.za

I have always  surrounded my kids with books and read to them as much as possible. Most of these books I find  in libraries, at the homes of friends,  at bookstores,  school fetes, you name it,  wherever they can be found.  When relatives ask me what they can buy my kids as gifts,  my first choice is always books.

Today it gives me huge pleasure  to watch them escape into this world of the imagination, of stories.  As I write this my son is lying in bed starting the third book in a fantastic series for older kids ( from11yrs) by Rick Riordan about a character called Percy Jackson set against the background of Greek Mythology. He is captivated, can’t stop and could easily read for hours. Luckily its Saturday,  so the chances are good.

I want to share some of our best reads with you and invite you to do the same.  Lets create a wonderful list , one we can all use to instill a love of reading in our children.

The books  Marvin could not put down:

From  10yrs:
-  The Lion boy trilogy by Zizou Corder ( incredible, for parents too)
-  Eva Ibbotson’s books, especially The Dragonfly Pool.
- Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan

6-9yrs
-The Diary of Wimpy Kids series
- Roald Dahl kids stories

2-5yrs
- So Much! by Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury  ( one of my all time favourites – written like a rap song/poem)
- Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. ( all his books are great)
- Ezra Jack Keats :  A letter to Amy or Whistle for Willie

I could go on and on but maybe this is enough to start with. I will add to this list as I  remember.  Please help us grow it.

by Kojo Baffoe a man, a father, a son, a brother, a husband, a friend, a poet, a writer on a quest to make sense of this reality, with words. Author of Evolutionary.

I love reading. I don’t get to do it as much, but I still love the feel of a book. Every now and then I still find books that, once picked up, cannot be put down. Books that have you sitting, during the witching hour, repeating the mantra, “one more chapter and then I sleep, one more chapter and then I sleep.”

This probably comes from living in a home where the garage was converted into a study just to house my father’s books, covering a myriad of subjects. I would spend hours in there, looking for something to read. I went through phases, hanging out in the school library reading everything from Agatha Christie to Louis L’amour.

While I have always bought books, it is only in the last couple of years that I have been able to start to build a decent library. So, you can imagine my hope when it comes to Kweku, my son. I started doing the alphabet with him at two weeks and still do nearly every night. Same thing with counting, which he can comfortably do up to 10 and is working on 11 to 20.

I also started reading to him very early. The usual stories for his age group are short and, to be honest, boring (I have to read them) so I very quickly picked up a copy of bedtime stories that cover stories from different cultures across the world. I have also started looking for the fairytales that I grew up on and have since discovered how scary they are. There always seems to be someone who died and tragedy. For Cinderella to have a step-mother, her real mother had to die.

“London Bridge is falling down” is about destruction, Jack loses his head falling down a hill, Hansel & Gretel nearly become cuisine for a witch and the snoring old man bumps his head on the edge of the bed and can’t get up in the morning. Some of these have as much destruction as an action movie. I was becoming paralysed, not quite sure what I can read to my son beyond the cute little books with lots of pictures.

So, I decided to just read. He also seems to love books and will spend a good 10 to 20 minutes flipping through a magazine or newspaper so now we are going through Kahlil Gibran’s The Alchemist at bedtime, for the second time. Next up, it is Anansi The Spider, fables from Ghana. I also read him poetry sometimes and stories of Winnie The Pooh (a favourite for all of us). What do you read your children?