Where The Wild Things Are

One of the first books which I can remember being read to us by the librarians at Willard School is Maurice Sendek's 1963 children's picture book, Where The Wild Things Are. This is my earliest memory of being read to at school, my parents also did it quite a bit in our home. It shows to me that a love of reading is preferably encouraged at a young age by both parents and schools.

Today's children, if the news can be believed, are more likely to own a cell phone than a book. While I am a proponent of technology, and earn my living because of its ubiquity, I do find this report from the National Literacy Trust most disturbing. Here is more:

Almost nine-in-10 pupils now have a mobile phone compared with fewer than three-quarters who have their own books in the home, it was disclosed. The study by the National Literacy Trust suggested a link between regular access to books outside school and high test scores. According to figures, some 80 per cent of children with better than expected reading skills had their own books, compared with just 58 per cent who were below the level expected for their age group. The disclosure follows the publication of a study found that found keeping just 20 books in the home could boost children's chances of doing well at school.

It's hard to consider a future, or even a present, where school children have electronic gadgets and power adapters lining the bookshelves in their bedrooms, instead of having them lined with books. The books on my shelves, some of which have been with me for decades and were originally my father's, are a great source of comfort and inspiration. They contain the thoughts of the best and brightest minds and demand to be re-examined for their relevance by each successive generation. I can't think of a single cell phone, or electronic device which will produce the same feelings of attachment that books can or which can act as touchstones like books or poems. We tend to dispose of our electronic devices rather quickly and only retain small amounts of nostalgia regarding them. These feelings are dwarfed by those generated by a reading, or re-reading of the plays or sonnets of Shakespeare or one of the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson or a poem of William Butler Yeats. We will keep these authors and poets with us, if we are smart, long after we discard our old computers, cell phones, and TV sets. I just can't imagine it being any other way. The thought of no books is truly a place to me "where the wild things are" and not one I imagine would do much for a child's development into an adult.