Good children deserve good books

ALL children need access to books.

Lazy advertising! All children deserve good books. The biggest benefit for me is that special time when my grandchildren want me to read a story with them. Even my 11 year old grandson still wants chapters reading to him when he stays overnight, and it's a pleasure to share those precious moments.

Oh, now you are just being picky! It's a way to get to grannies, isn't it? All of our grandchildren are good!

Aren't they?

Thank you butty and carol! if you hadn't said it already, that's just what I was going to say. Let's go further: 'Bad' children need good books! Would probably make all the difference, poor little sods.

Before anyone complains, a sod is a lump of earth.

Which we all are.

Well said bagitha I was just going to say exactly that. All children need lots of books and "bad children" need lots more books!

How do you define 'bad' children? Or 'good' ones for that matter?

Exactly! Cheers for annobel!

But it's just a clever advertising slogan! At least, they think it's clever. Obviously doesn't work round here though!

I love the Zoe and Beans one. Especially when it's running along the top.

I'm not a lump of earth. I'm made of stardust.

Earth is just old stardust.

We are all of us old stardust.

I am very earthy star dust.

And I'm a piece of this Earth = lump of earth. But I'm not a poor little sod because I have lots of books.

All children need good books, and some books are definately better than others on offer.

In a recent report the National Literacy Trust says, '3.8 million children in the UK do not own a book; seven years ago 1 child in 10 did not have a book of their own while today the figure stands at a startling 1 child in 3.' They also say that one in six people in the UK has the literacy level expected of an eleven year old!!
By contrast, a separate survey shows 85 per cent of London children own a computer games console.
Changes in society and greater access to technology have meant that in many children's homes books and reading are not considered priorities.
There are free book packs given to parents of newborns, toddlers etc., World Book Day with its free book vouchers and (for now anyway) free accessible libraries; so there is no reason why parents shouldn't encourage children to have books in the home and read them. In many families the only available book is, apparently, an Argos catalogue. My family were very poor and we had no books in the home when I was a child, so I walked the three miles to the library and back every week in order to have books to read.

ga, it was the same in my husband's childhood home. There were no books other than the ones he brought from the library. Even though our house is stuffed with books, DD brings home more books than she's technically allowed from the local library (well-placed right next to the primary school so every child has access). They allow her to do this because she reads so fast and takes them back and in our small community the librarian knows the children (and other library users) personally. What a bonus! We had to fight the council to keep both the library and the school, though. Grrr.

I love books. Story time can be magical. Son's well-read collection from childhood now belongs to his son - a very sweet little sod!

I know we're not supposed to advertise but hope I'm allowed to recommend these two children's books by my next door neighbour since she is only a ten year old child herself!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=amy+middlebrook

a more informative link...
http://sbpra.com/amymiddlebrook/

trishs to make a link just put double square brackets around the URL.
sbpra.com/amymiddlebrook/

thanks, trishs. I have sent the link to my DS so that he can show it to my GD who is a very creative nine-year-old who writes and illustrates her own stories.

Thanks for the advice/info. I'll gradually get to know my way round I expect Don't have a lot of time to spend here but still like to join in when it seems appropriate.

Amy is a very imaginative and caring little girl. She and her dad help us out by feeding our feral cats when we go on holiday. The other side of our garden hedge appears in one of the photos in the Cat book. It looks far more impressive at their side

My GD is duly impressed with Amy's enterprise.