Your Future Readership

[delboy]

Interesting articles on today's BBC website. Nothing we didn't already know, but some of the figures are interesting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14621621

"Most children (28.9%) estimated they had between 11 and 50 books in their homes."

I have about 11 books in my 'currently reading' pile and about 50 stacked up on the floor in the 'no room on my shelf or in the garage" pile.

"...nearly one in five children have never been given a book as a present. This was more common for boys than girls.
"

The good news is: "However, just under half of all children surveyed said they enjoyed reading a lot."  Tempered by their choice of material: "Text messages, magazines, e-mails and websites were the top leisure reading choices." 

Derek

[Rev. Austin]

No matter how hard I try, I cannot equate 'text messages' with 'leisure reading' 

[Ed]

I used to hate aunties and uncles giving me books for Christmas or birthdays. It's so rare that you can choose a book that somebody else will enjoy. It's as personal as jewellery, or perfume, I think. Quite often I would get one that was too young for me, or when I was young, too old with no pictures. I remember it well. I think it's probably harder to buy for children you don't have a lot of contact with than it is for an adult.

[delboy]

Chptr 1 was a drk & strmy day & chardonnays car hd brokn down in d woods. luck 4 her was a misteryous hse over in d woods. what C didnnt no was there was a killer in d house. Chptr 2 on my app "horror SMS for free!" just 79p per dwnld

[desertwomble]

Chptr 1 was a drk & strmy day & chardonnays car hd brokn down in d woods. luck 4 her was a misteryous hse over in d woods. what C didnnt no was there was a killer in d house. Chptr 2 on my app "horror SMS for free!" just 79p per dwnld

Gr8!

DW

[Pharosian]

"Most children (28.9%) estimated they had between 11 and 50 books in their homes."

Apparently math skills are in danger of becoming rare as well: Since when does just over a quarter of all children equate to "most"?

[delboy]

I thought the same, but I'm guessing that whatever the question was (maybe "How many books do you have in your household - None, 1-10, 11-50, 50-100 etc ) the largest single group was the 11-50 group with 29%. But you're right, the wording from the BBC site doesn't make it clear.

Derek

[Robert Essig]

As a child, I despised reading.  It wasn't until I was in Jr. Highschool that I came around, and even then I didn't like reading what the schools made the students read.

[marc_chagall]

As a small child, I couldn't read (dyslexic) but luckily one or two relatives spotted I was keen on art and gave me art books as presents, many of which I still have (though I still haven't read the text in any of them; I just study the pictures). When I learnt to read, I loved the stuff we had to read at school. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who did, but I gorged myself on Shakespeare, Chaucer, the Brontes, Jane Austen, John Donne. Bliss! Didn't get on so well with John Milton or Thomas Hardy, but you can't expect to like everything.

It's a shame if children don't read or possess books as such, but it's not the end of the world. Plenty of adults who were surrounded by books as children have no interest in them, and conversely plenty of children who had no books when young make up for it when adults. 

[Geoff_N]

It's only as an adult that I get books given me as presents. As a kid our house was floor-to-ceiling books. Both my parents were mad science fiction fans, in addition to historical novels.  My mother made sure I was in the Children's SF book club when I was four! Consequently, books weren't a novelty even though most were second-hand or from libraries. Giving a book as a present wouldn't have been sufficiently novel [sic] to be special. Like Delph I was often given art materials - my dad illustrated SF mags as a hobby - and I much enjoyed receiving science equipment such as chemistry sets, microscopes, telescopes, time machines...

[Ed]

I would have given my right arm for a chemistry set, microscope, telescope, as a kid. You were a very lucky boy, Geoff  My parents and most of my relations were dirt poor, so all that stuff was out of the question. We didn't even have carpet downstairs.

But anyway, yep -- books, clothes, the occasional made in Hong Kong toy, and a second hand bike, was the sort of thing I got. I read quite a lot as a kid

[marc_chagall]

I would have given anything for a chemistry set! But being a girl, of course I wasn't allowed such things. I had to have 'dressing up dolls' and other such wildly exciting gifts. When we were given lego, he was given the bricks to make some sort of vehicle; I was given the bricks to make a bungalow. Even when me and my brother were given airfix kits, he got a superb tea clipper, and I got Joan of Arc. 

You guys have NO IDEA what shit it was growing up in the sixties as a girl! Now I've started ranting, I'll continue. I remember a family holiday when a kind person in a little motor boat on a river gave us a ride. My brother was allowed to have a go at steering because he was a boy. Nobody thought to ask me if I might like a go. Then one time we were visiting, I think it was St David's cathedral. The organist was practising. My brother was allowed to have a go on the cathedral organ because he was a boy and had been learning piano a year longer than me. One year, we split up for family holidays. Dad and my brother went mountaineering in North Wales (I'd have given my eye teeth to have done that). Me and Mum went and stayed in a B&B in Hastings.

If you'd asked my parents in later years if they'd thought our upbringing was just a wee bit gender specific, they'd have looked at you blankly.

[Ed]

Mmmmaaand so it should be, young lady. I don't know -- next you'll be throwing yourself in front of the king's horse, Delph

[Pharosian]

When my brother and I were about 5 and 6 respectively, he got a box of 64 Crayola crayons for Christmas, and I got a stupid Penny doll (see photo). I was SO jealous! The givers were a great aunt and uncle, though. My parents (Mom) usually graced us both with exciting items like pajamas or slippers    ; my maternal grandmother always gave us clothes (she worked in a department store). My brother got model cars and Tonka trucks, but I wasn't really interested in those. I had my horse statues to play with. And we both got books and I read voraciously... brother, not so much.

The real gems came from my mother's two younger sisters. My aunts were both single and college-educated, and they'd give us stuff like puzzles or Lincoln logs or Tinker Toys--and they'd play with us and help us build things. The older of the two had a degree in chemistry, so she got us a chemistry set one year when we were old enough. She showed us lots of cool experiments and I got to see elemental sulfur and learned how to turn a phenolphthalein solution pink... she even showed us how to make gunpowder!

When I was really little, my dad was a technical illustrator, but he didn't make enough money doing that, so he became an over-the-road truck driver. When I got to be 12 or 13 (I think), I'd go with him at the weekend to wash the truck. My brother would stay home with my mom!

My parents always encouraged us to be whatever we wanted to be. That is, until I came home from high school and announced that I was going to be a civil engineer. My dad had pictures of me working on a construction site, and he didn't see that going well at all. At college I made it through a year in the civil engineering curriculum, but when I took a materials science elective, I changed my major to metallurgical engineering, and my dad was MUCH happier! Having had all that early instruction in chemistry and other sciences at home (we'd sit around the dinner table talking about amino acids or astronomy or the digestive system...) really gave me a leg up when it came to college.

[Rook]

I was lucky--the few relatives who gave me books had good taste. Sci-fi and fantasy, mostly. My parents didn't get me books for holidays mostly, (my mother's a good gift giver, anyway.) but we made regular pilgrimages to the library and bookstore. I've spent a good chunk of my life with my nose in a book...

The worst gift I ever got is a toss up between the turtlenecks an aunt gave me for Christmas, with a terrible, childish print, (I think I was twelve at the time, and hadn't worn anything like them since I was five. I would be more charitable, but she saw me all time, and should have known better. They were cheap, too, and I suspect that had something to do with it.) and the doll my grandparents gave me. All their granddaughters got one that year. The doll itself, while of no interest to me, wasn't as bad as how they gave it. They wrapped them, (each was subtly different--you know, the Caucasian, Native American, the African-American, etc.), put them in a trash bag, and just handed each girl a random doll. They didn't even pretend to have selected which would go to which girl! I might add, the five boys got handheld video games. (battleship, fishing, poker, etc.) which I would have definitely wanted more. And theirs had their name on it! Now that I think of it, that may have been the same year...

Of course, the most life changing book gift may have been the two massive boxes of adult sci-fi paperbacks from the sixties and seventies my uncle gave me at fifteen. HEAVEN!