Showing Children Reading’s Delights

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31080, 8 June 1966, Page 10

Showing Children Reading’s Delights

(Bu

ZALIA THOMAS)

In her 10 years as a teacher in a secondary school Mrs Anne Wood saw that many children miss the real delights of reading, which nourish what she calls “the dreams and fancies of childhood.”

In the drive for a “good education” children are sometimes provided only with the books that will help them pass examinations. Yet if they are not encouraged to explore for pleasure alone in childhood the exciting books available, they lose much that can give them a fuller adult life.

With the birth of her first child and the end of her fulltime work as a teacher, Mrs Wood maintains a correspondence about books with about 400 school children. She talks to anyone who will listen on the need to tell children and parents about the rich harvest of books available to children today. The head of an evening institute near her home in Surrey was interested in her ideas and suggested

she should give a course of lectures on “Children’s Books and You.”

The group of 25 parents who attended the course were fired by the enthusiasm of Mrs Wood. They decided that, with the rapid expansion of publishing for children during the last 10 years, parents, librarians and teachers needed to meet to discover what was available, determine the good from the second-rate and shoddy, and tell people about it.

They formed the Society for Children’s Literature, which arranges book exhibitions, collects information on children’s reading and organises meetings where publishers, authors, and teachers can discuss children and reading. The society wants to encourage the establishment of more specialist children’s bookshops like the one run by a supporter, Mrs Joan Dashwood, in their area. Mrs Dashwood feels that “a little time, thought, and a genuine desire for the child’s pleasure and welfare, given often, could create a revolution in children’s reading.” Another specialist children’s bookshop which the society supports and publicises is the central London Children’s Book Centre, opened four years ago by Mr Eric Baker.

The shop is keyed to children’s reading needs and all members of the staff read the books in stock so that they know what they are recommending. Initially, the society concentrated on its local community, but its influence has spread throughout Britain and inquiries have also been received from Canada, the United States, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and India.

Mrs Wood helps to publicise the society locally by talks to women’s organisations. She tells her audiences that food and clothes for their children’s bodies are not enough. They also need food for their imagination. She asks them to share in their children’s reading by reading the books themselves and not to give up reading aloud to children as soon as they learn to read.

To help spread information about what is being published today for children Mrs Wood is editing a quarterly magazine “Books for Your Children,” available to anyone wanting to know more about the subject. In the magazine, librarians, teachers and mothers write about children’s books for every stage and on every subject. Some of the books are classics, some cost only pennies, some are expensive but a visual pleasure, too, like the illustrated Oxford Book of Poetry for Children. The first issue has already produced offers of help, advice, book lists, articles and lectures from library services, universities, authors and the 8.8. C.

British designers of children’s fashions are now meeting the demands of the “young” set for “with-it” styles, similar to those their big sisters are wearing.

For the young outdoor girl (above) is a skirt with elastic side tabs which grip the waist. The black patent leather belt and braces also help to keep the skirt neatly in position. The outfit is teamed with a black sweater and white knee-length stockings. Jenny Lucas, aged 10, (right), is wearing a striped p.v.c. machintosk and cape with a matching hat.