Books from babyhood recommended

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33063, 2 November 1972, Page 6

Books from babyhood recommended

Children should be aware of books from babyhood, Mrs Margaret Mahy, a librarian and author of children’s books, told the Canterbury Play Centre Association’s annual meeting recently. She discussed values in children’s literature, with particular emphasis on the pre-school child. To stimulate a child’s interest in books, parents themselves should be interested readers. Children should have books round them all the time—books that were read and not just left on a shelf, said Mrs Mahy. Although there was no recipe for making a good, enthusiastic reader, people were born with an ability to enjoy a story. Both the written and the spoken word served different, but equally important, purposes in communication. “It is a great mistake to see reading as isolated,” she said. “Lack of story-telling in childhood is one of the things which contributes to difficulties in communication. The years up to seven and eight are of vital importance in reading and conversation.”

PICTURES After this age, it seemed that children lost some of their elasticity, and their ability to accept and wonder. But some could become very enthusiastic readers after this stage.

Recognition of pictures was the child’s first introduction to the world of books. Children were very physical, and so were the things they recognised and identified. It was important in choosing a picture book for this early stage that the pictures showed recognisable objects. “Don’t leave the child alone with a book at this age,” said Mrs Mahy. “The child needs someone to talk about the book with him. He is then beginning to move into the world of imagery and abstraction and likes to be reassured.”

Mrs Mahy said she believed it was important for a child to make use of imagery in reading and language because it added to an accurate definition of feeling. “You can light up a thought with imagery,” she said. “It is not a pretty frill, but a necessary part of communication.”

When a child could understand a very simple story read to him, he could then move into some forms of abstraction. Parents must be the judge of the degree of that abstraction.

Folk-tales, Mrs Mahy said, were ideal for story telling. “Nothing will replace the told story,” she said. “You can tell a story while you are doing the housework, and you are freed from the tyranny of the printed page, to look at the child and see his reactions.”

However, Mrs Mahy said that at this stage repetition became important. The child would ask for the story again and again. It would have to be told with exactly the detail of the first telling, for a child would always remem-

important part of story-tell-ber this. One could no more leave out a phrase or two in a story than a page in a book. Emphasis was also a very ing and the listening experience.

It was also good to be able to recite poems and rhymes. While it was important for families to have a core of well-loved books, Mrs Mahy recommended the use of a library and buying picture books in paper-back form to "fill up odd crevices.” Children liked counting, and there were some good number books available they would enjoy having read to them. Non-fiction books could also be most absorbing because very young children were interested in the world. Books with a simple text and pictures were ideal. Mrs Mahy illustrated her point with a picture book on the birth of kittens. At the ages of four, five, and six, parents could read many books to children with some exposure to books. And there were stories which could span age groups very successfully. A good reader would read omnivorously, and as the child was growing up, he would go from comics to adult adventure stories and Dickens, and back to beloved books of childhood. SELECTION SHOWN During her talk, Mrs Mahy showed a selection from a wide range of children’s literature, from a science fiction thriller with a message to a book which she described as ideal for releasing aggression acceptably—it told the tale of how a little boy looked forward to being six and the ultimate reckoning with his older brother in a witty, whimsical style which had the adult audience laughing.