I was listening to Radio 4 in the car on the way home from taking the children to school.
This was after a slight detour to the local Co-op, who, my mum informed me (by the power of giving me a tin), were reducing all their tins of Illy coffee to £3.49 each. Illy is my favourite brand, and it is bloody expensive. I pay anything from £5.50 to £6.50 a tin, and it only lasts a week. I bought six tins, all the while cackling with glee. S’better than finding a San Pellegrino well in the back garden. Result! The woman on the till clearly thought I was insane, and possibly experiencing some kind of coffee related mania.
I didn’t care.
She processed my order extra quickly, which was an unforseen bonus.
And I was outa there.
I was only half listening to the radio if I’m honest. I was far too busy preening myself about my Broughton Astley coffee mountain, when the mention of books and reading caught my attention.
I tuned in properly this time.
It was the Radio 4 Book of the Week, with an excerpt called The Right Words in the Wrong Order, written and read by the excellent Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. It’s a cracker).
It is from a book called: Stop What You’re Doing and Read This!’, an anthology of writing by Haddon, Michael Rosen, Jeanette Winterson, Tim Parks and Carmen Callil, amongst others (these are the authors featured on Book of the Week) about the importance of reading and what it does for us as human beings.
Haddon was inspired. He talked about what books give us that things like film and television do not. He talked about their ability to evoke smells and tastes, to create texture, to allow us to inhabit the skin of another human being. He talked about the fact that a camera always has to be awake and alert, and because of this it cannot really capture the idleness of being, the down time, the reverie and sleep of a person’s life like words can.
In fifteen, brief and glorious minutes he awoke in me my absolute delight and pleasure in the power of the written word. It energised me more than any coffee mountain. Amazing.
Although I fear we still have some way to go with Master Oscar. Yesterday on the way to school we were talking about how quite often in schools, teachers tend to read children tried and tested books and authors (like Roald Dahl for example), because they know that they will be on safe ground. I was saying that I think it is a shame that some teachers aren’t more adventurous. They have such a platform to introduce children to new writing, and there are some amazingly talented children’s authors out there who don’t always get a look in. Authors whose work deserves to be read to a wider audience.
I was saying to the children how much I loved it when they introduce me to books that I wouldn’t normally read and I enjoy them (although Tallulah’s persistent attempts to get me to read more Jacqueline Wilson books are not falling on fruitful ground. I’ve read two. That is enough). I said that I hoped that as Oscar’s reading skills got better and better, that he would be able to introduce me to new authors, and that maybe, as he was a boy, they would be very different to the kinds of books his sisters lend me.
He looked absolutely stricken and said: ‘But I’m not going to be a teacher when I grow up, so I won’t have to read then.’
I said: ‘Some people do read for pleasure you know? We all do at home.’
He was stunned. Genuinely stunned.
It’s going to take a while isn’t it?
I’ve spent close to 36 hours devouring your wonderful insights to the quirks of human nature – and they have been incredible – if a little disconcerting for those around me
It was mid treadmill session with headphones on that I flashed back to your Sports Bake Off reports which resulted in the loudest snort and trill of giggling which left other treadmill devotees running for cover. Furthermore,
the last ten minutes have been filled with cackling laughter over your coffee exploits – thank God I’m not the only one.
I’m so pleased I found you and I can’t wait for more! – Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Giggler,
Thank you. What a wonderful comment.xx
Ah, the lure of the printed page – so much more satisfying than any film.
Oscar will get ‘it’ eventually, how could he not, living with a family of prolific readers in a house full of books!
Sharon
absolutely. I approve of the word ‘lure’ there.
Bless Oscar. I’m sure he’ll get there eventually. Jan only read Mickey Mouse comics for years and years. And now he’s just finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel which is loooong (and apparantly takes forever to get started).
Bev
How did he find it? I haven’t finished it yet and I started it six years ago!
Hi – Lovely writing on your blog – but you did press a button when you talked about ‘new’ books. There’s a whole culture of the new around, and especially in children’s publishing, where only a very small selection of ‘old’ books are kept in print. But newer is not necessarily better – though it’s true that we need to encourage new writers, it’s also sad when really clever, well-illustrated, witty and educative books are so far out of print that they are effectively lost for ever.
Oscar sounds like fun! Maybe he’ll be a writer, with that wonderfully upfront approach.
Hi Albertine
I don’t think old books are bad. I have plenty! I mean new books in terms of new books to the children and the teachers, although there is plenty of exciting new literature out there too. In a recent post I have been agitating for the re issue of Helen Clare’s Five Dolls in a House and Astrid Lindgren’s The Bullerby Children series. I love books like Mistress Masham’s Repose by T.H. White, and The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe. There are hundreds of books I read as a child that are sitting in the shelves waiting for my children to read. There is a movement in publishing to slowly start reprinting older works, which is good. The problem with modern children reading older books (and I know I’m generalising a bit here) is that often they are unacquainted with the fact that the pace is slower and the language is often harder work than they’re prepared to put in. It would be better if schools would teach them not to be afraid of this kind of writing and reading, but they rarely do.
Have to agree on all counts – books (and coffee!) matter! We have so many books crammed into this house that we’re almost tripping over them…with large age gaps between our 4 children, I often find myself buying yet another “must have” for the third time. My girls are avid readers, my son less so (despite the role model of his father!) DS would far rather read Horrible Histories or the encyclopedia than a novel but I was thrilled to find him reading one for pleasure recently. (He’s 20 and reading politics and philosophy). His teenage sister recently wrote herself a reading list which includes The Great Gatsby and Les Miserables, despite her addiction to American detectives. The 8 yr old’s bed has Winnie the Pooh, books on bugs, the dreaded Jacqueline Wilson, Rainbow Fairies and science books plus Beowulf hidden there for under the covers reading. Reckon I must be doing something right there!
Just keep the books available and keep talking…
PS. Found your blog via a search for something on the BBC – looking forard to a proper read-around later!