The Places You Will Go

Children's authors in schools: literature's road warriors | Books | guardian.co.uk

Michael Rosen at Ladygrove Park Primary School in Didcot. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

via guardian.co.uk

Posted via email from daphnelee's posterous

When I was at school, we rarely had interesting visitors to the classroom: the highlight was probably the local policeman, who popped by once a year to show off his panda car. I'm not that old, but in the 20 years since my days of learning times tables, it's clear this has changed, and for the better.

2009: My Reading Year

I had a list of books I decided I should read in 2009, including To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn, but I didn't read any of them.

What I did manage was to start a blog in which I recorded all the books I read (really read, not just skimmed). I'm glad to say I actually stuck to it (considering past efforts to jot down titles in a notebook - I either always forgot or misplaced the notebook) and it tells me that I read 134 books in 2009 (I read four Abbey books that I listed as one because I couldn't find images of their covers). Not bad I suppose! (About 60 of the books were children's or YA titles.)

In 2010 I hope to read:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Mysteries of Udolfo by Anne Radcliffe

Appetite for Life by Noel Riley Pitch (this is the biography of Julia Child - I watched Julie & Julia, and while I was annoyed by Julie, I fell in love with Julia.)

and lots more of course. I find I can't plan what I'll actually end up reading though.

Where's the Fun Gone?

By DAPHNE LEE

Tots to Teens, StarMag

THERE’S so much emphasis on literacy these days that I think people have forgotten or overlooked the joy of reading, ie, the simple pleasure of reading or listening to a good story – if they ever knew it in the first place.

I can’t think of anyone from my generation who enrolled in a reading programme or was taught phonics by a parent or at kindergarten. Why is it necessary today? Because parents are now more determined than ever that Kok Leong Jnr and Little Shanti get a head start in the race to Oxbridge and the Ivy League universities?

WHAT?

A college student who interviewed me for a paper she's writing sent me the link to the article I've reproduced below.

My mind is boggled and my flabber gasted.

Have highlighted my favourite bits. Oh you have to laugh ...

From The Star, 5th April 2009

Malaysia needs to publish a lot more books

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has to publish 27,000 book titles for general reading annually to become a knowledgeable, developed nation and be on par with other developed countries, Malaysian Book Contractors Association president Hasan Hamzah said.

He said that in countries like Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Sweden and Germany, the ratio was 1,000 book titles to one million population.

“Hence, Malaysia has to publish 27,000 book titles for its 27 million population a year, ” he said, adding that such an effort would require an allocation of about RM300mil.

Hasan said Malaysia currently published only 10,000 book titles every year, which is still very far behind from that in other developed countries.

Most of the books found in Malaysia were imported ones, despite the country having many local intellectuals, including about 350,000 teachers and more than 40,000 lecturers or professors, who were capable of producing books for general reading, he added.

However, he said it was not because there were not many locally-published books that reading was not a habit among Malaysians.

“Actually, our society loves knowledge and they like to read. It is because the books are expensive to buy,” he added.

Hasan said that for a book to be sold cheap, a publisher had to print at least 3,000 copies for each book title a year.

There would be an increase in demand for general books with support from the government through provision of special allocations for publication of books for general reading, he added. -- Bernama

It's Not Supposed to Hurt

I've always believed that parents and teachers are way to fussed about their children learning to read. Why is it so important to know how to read? So you can do well in school of course. Ho-hum.

OK, OK, so it's important to do well. It's important for ... erm ... one's self-esteem ... and ... future. Yes, yes, score straight As and get that first class so you can join the rat race and spend the rest of your life paying off a seven-figure mortgage.

Seriously though, I think parents and teachers should lighten up. Reading should be fun, not a bore. It should be a treat not a chore.

If your children love stories and see books as fun and exciting, they'll learn to read soon enough.

Michael Rosen, Britain's children's laureate, has the right idea, as written about in The Guardian (here and here). There's a BBC documentary being aired tomorrow (in the UK) about how he tries to turn the children in a Cardiff primary school into book lovers.

Rosen says: "Books are low-tech, portable packages of the widest range of human experience, presented in a format which gives time to grasp complex ideas or to spend time in imaginative worlds. Children who "get" the reading thing have the best possible platform for "getting" the trick of school learning, as well as a resource for the rest of their lives.

"This makes the current situation, with "reading" compulsory, but reading books optional, discriminatory. If schools don't make books important then children who come from homes with no books, and who don't visit libraries, will never find their way into this vital way of presenting ideas, feelings and knowledge."

For him, one of the most exciting things about the project was seeing "teachers enjoy the freedom of being able to transform children's lives".

I wonder what Malaysian teachers would do given a similar chance.