Re: bedtime with Daddy

Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@hotpop.com)
Mon, 22 Nov 1999 11:25:14 +1100 

My father, while known as `The Only Engineer In The World Who Reads Virginia
Woolf in His Lunch Breaks', was not the main source of my literary
wellspring. This I owe to my mother, and it is something I am forever in her
debt for. Beginning me on simple books before I could talk, amongst my first
words was the phrase `Book-story! Book-story!' and it was uttered ad
infinitum. She began me on the Narnia Series at I think age 3, and we had
progressed well on to JRR Tolkein by age 4. I knew my books so well that I
would prompt my mother if she left any paragraph, phrase or word out
(possibly owing to the effects of sleep deprivation; I was a demanding
reader) By age 5 when I had learnt to read myself the great revelation was
that I *didn't* necessarily have to stop after one chapter as she did; that
I could read a whole book in one sitting if I wanted to! The rest is
history.

As for de Maupassant and de Sade? I'm glad she left those til I was older (:

Camille

Scottie wrote:
>     I had just read Lucy Ruth's memory of her Dad's
>     reading Salinger to her when, by coincidence,
>     I listened to a BBC radio discussion of the role played
>     by fathers in their children's literary education.
>
>     I was disappointed but not at all surprised to hear
>     that in England the average child views his or her father
>     as more or less illiterate.  When children were questioned,
>     the majority reported their fathers as being mainly
>     interested in 'instruction manuals' - having no time
>     for 'stories' which they expected their fathers to find
>     'boring'.  Very few indeed had enjoyed the experience
>     of being read to by Daddy.  And the stark statistic
>     remains that, in this part of the world anyway,
>     only 18% of all books are purchased by men.
>     (This one DID surprise me.)
>
>     Although I personally emerged from the uterus
>     asking for publishing news of the latest Joyce,
>     by 1932 I can remember indulging both my father
>     & grandfather when, at the cot side, they read me
>     the works of de Maupassant & de Sade.  And I
>     naturally carried on this paternal function with
>     my own children.
>
>     But what about Bananafish?  Out in the old
>     log cabin, or by the camp fire's glow, was Pop
>     in evidence with his book on his lap?
>
>     Scottie B.
>
>
>
>
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