A lot of folks ask me to recommend books
for their children and look somewhat askance when I suggest letting the kids
choose for themselves. “But I don’t want my underage child reading trash like
50 Shades of Smut!” they protest vociferously, “Are you saying that they should
be allowed to get their hands on that sort of thing?”
Not
exactly. What I mean is that youngsters should be allowed to wander about in
the aisles, inhale the delicious aroma of books, soak in the ambience of
unlimited stories so that they may hone in on the tomes that speak to them. In
the early stages, they may just go with a book because the cover is a virulent
shade of their favourite colour with glitter to boot. But gradually they will
learn to hearken to the call of the voracious reader within, attuned to the
lure of the alluring opus that best meets their needs.
Parents
in their enthusiasm to cultivate the burgeoning reading habit of their children
tend to nudge them towards books that have educational or moral value which
makes the experience feel like the literary equivalent of being force fed
broccoli and spinach, thereby inculcating in kids a disdain for books and
sending them back into the toxic embrace of television and ipads.
Any
bibliophile will tell you that for sheer entertainment value, books are hard to
beat. And as with any form of divertissement, tastes are wide – ranging and
there is no accounting for it. Calvin and Hobbes is as likely to stimulate the
intellect as Socrates or Plato and kids may be morally enriched by a perusal
not only of Aesop’s Fables but Archie comics as well.
In
the course of their literary wanderings, youngsters may want to wet their
whistles in erotica and dip their beaks in novels written in blood with so much
graphic gore, they make your standard Quentin Tarantino and Takashi Miike fare
seem on par with Disney at its most cuddly. And I say let them. Why do we
always assume the worst of our children? Today’s whippersnappers are smart and
perfectly capable of making wise choices for themselves.
My
father batted an eyelid but just barely when I opted for yet another instalment
of Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley series during our bookstore visits and much
later, he might have winced when I informed him that Sade had taken up
residence on my reading table. It is to his credit that he trusted me enough to
believe that weird though my tastes were shaping up to be, the odds of my
becoming a deranged serial killer were remote. Needless to say, his wisdom and
forbearance paid off because to the best of my knowledge, I have not gone
berserk, embarked on a mass – murdering spree or even done anything remotely
illegal. Yet.
An edited version of this was carried by The New Indian Express in my fortnightly column, For Crying Out Loud.
An edited version of this was carried by The New Indian Express in my fortnightly column, For Crying Out Loud.
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