OPEN THE DOORS

New Zealand Tablet, 7 September 1911, Page 1774

OPEN THE DOORS

A bright, intellectual mother told me how she had grieved over the fact that her only son seemed to positively dislike reading in any form. One day, after she had been urging him to read a new book which she had purchased for him, the boy said earnestly, ‘ Mother, ITI read it if you will start it for me. I can’t bear to start on a new book by myself. I feel just as X do when I have to walk up to a house and ring the bell. If some one I know opens the door and makes me feel welcome I’m all right, but I couldn’t walk in alone. Won’t you open the door of this book?’ My friend said that she sat down with her boy and read the first three chapters aloud, and after his interest had been aroused he plunged into it with his whole heart, and could hardly lay it down until he had finished it. After that the mother always read aloud the first chapter of a new book, and she had no further complaint to make of her boy’s dislike for reading, but even now, when he is a great boy, a graduate of the high school, he likes best to read new books with his mother. I tell this little incident because I have heard other mothers lamenting the fact that their children do not care to read, no matter how much good literature is purchased. Perhaps other children have this same feeling of timidity about entering the realms of history or fiction; and what a privilege it is for mothers to be able to open the doors which will lead their children into the paths of all that is purest and best in literature ! The time spent in giving a child a taste for good reading is well spent, so never be too busy to open the door to new books.