My brothers and I had a lot of picturebooks as kids in the 80s, especially Golden Books. But for some reason the book buying came to an end in primary school. By the time we were teenagers I guess we were expensive enough, and book gifts dried up completely. Books were hell expensive in New Zealand and I guess that’s partly why.
As a consequence, the books I did own, I cherished. And I’m still not sure if I cherished books more simply because they weren’t on tap.
Fast forward about 25 years and I’m wondering why our five-year-old isn’t all that keen on books. I know, I know, there’s still time.
But there are also iPads. And there are several entire TV channels dedicated to advertisement-free children’s programs here in Australia, when all we had to watch, apart from Dif’rent Strokes and Happy Days, which don’t count (becuz!) Oh and there were also re-runs of Adam Ant, Huckleberry Finn and Scooby Doo — and I’m not even talking about re-runs of different episodes — three weekends in a row the schedulers played EXACTLY THE SAME EPISODES of these crappy shows in exactly the same order, and I’m still not over it. Obviously.
Although restricting TV remains a modern option, as is the restriction of wi-fi, it’s easier said than done when you’re a regular user of wi-fi yourself — and although you swore you’d never let your kid have a TV in their bedroom we are now living in the future gramps, so little kiddies can sneak an iPad into anywhere and with their tech-savvy little fingers they can watch anything via government-issue TV apps (which, yes, I have deleted on more than one occasion).
Also, I love books and our house is full of books, and when something is abundant it drops in value. Spare cupboards around here are not filled with unseasonal stashes of clothes, spare woollen blankets, boxes of screwdrivers and those other useful items I imagine other people keep in their spare cupboards — our spare space is currently filled with books, and a lot of them are kids’ books. And still, our kid keeps going back to the same old shitty ‘written from an episode of Crap On TV’ by Unknown Writer, illustrated by W. Outsourced, and these books somehow found their way into the house.
Why doesn’t our kid appreciate books? (Apart from the bedtime story, of course, which is a way of prolonging awake time.) She sees me reading all the time. Check. There are plenty of excellent picturebooks on the bottom shelves. Middle Class Check. She doesn’t touch them of her own accord.
Then it struck me that she hasn’t picked any of these books herself. She has access to lots of books, but she doesn’t ‘own’ them. I only realised the importance of self-driven selection after she brought her own library book home from preschool. She’d chosen it herself, so it was more important than the high-quality stuff I’d selected online and parallel imported at a very reasonable cost from Book Depository. Even when I let her open the book mail (nothing better than book mail, amirite!?) in her mind, these were still my books, not hers.
So next time we ventured to the mall I decided to do my bit for bricks and mortar bookstores (well, technically that’s not a plural) and buy an actual book (for about 40% more than I could get online, delivery included), and I would let the five-year-old choose it all by herself and I would not complain. And I would spark a lifelong interest in literature in one fell swoop. If all went well, one of the very knowledgeable staff would come over and get down on her level and use their excited voice.
Things didn’t go quite as well as they went in my own head. This happens a lot. Especially at the mall.
First, the kid was far more excited about the free Westfield balloon she’d just asked for at the information desk. (The balloon comes on a stick, which happens to be exactly the length of my torso, which places the balloon at the exact height of my godforsaken head.)
The bookstore was reassuringly busy, but only if you counted the bodies. We were the youngest in there by a long shot — I’d say by at least 20 years.
We were approached by a goth looking young woman who knew her books. I told her the situation, why we were here, left off the bit about how generous I was, visiting an actual store rather than saving money by importing at American prices, and we were led to the picturebook section where she ignored the kid and showed me Mo Willems’ latest, and then a Lemony Snicket, and they were beautiful works of art. I wanted them. This chick had great taste in picturebooks. JUST LIKE ME.
The kid wasn’t interested in lavishly illustrated slightly ironic picturebook literature, however, and was immediately drawn to about the ONLY THING on the whole darn shelf which was pink and sparkly. There were actual literal PONIES AND FAIRIES on it.
I have to admit, I went back on my word and I did not let her buy — with adult money — the thing that she wanted most in the entire world, because of my own consumer philosophies.
She did, however, grab another book off the rack which she already knew from preschool. It was a New Zealand book and it came with a CD and I’m happy to support the publishing industry of my own country (because it needs some help) and as we walked away from the counter, a dude yells out, “Have fun with the balloon!” and I seriously doubted whether the kid even cared about the book. The free balloon was way more fun than anything, and I suspected she’d grabbed any old book off the rack to shut her book-loving tiger mother up.
However. I am pleased to report that later that night, after the excitement of the balloon had worn off, she found the new book, asked her father to read it before bed, and very carefully insisted the CD went back into its sleeve after listening to the song. She wants to take it to preschool to show the teachers that she has EXACTLY THE SAME BOOK, because that’s very cool if you’re five and you don’t understand the concept of mass printing.
It remains to be seen whether this bookshop strategy works, or whether it turns this only child into a spoilt brat at the mall. I’ll let you know.
