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Brits apparently need a court order to bother telling their kids a bedtime story.
Having a bedtime story should be as much of a ritual for children as brushing their teeth, Ed Balls the Schools Secretary said today.
He called for a national revolution in children’s reading habits at home, as well as school.
Mr Balls wants all parents to read to their children for at least ten minutes a day and encourage their interest in books.
His announcement heralds the Government’s ‘national year of reading’ in 2008.
Um, people don’t do this already? It’s a practically a fight in my house to STOP the reading. Day or night. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been sent into the Bengal Tiger cage at the zoo holding a steak. I come out with shredded clothes and facial lacerations. We have to buy new shelves. FOR THE BOY. Every night the deal is one long story (ie, a Frog and Toad-type book or Pooh or Stuart Little or even something like The Boy Who Loved Words) and one short story (something full of pictures and a bit lighter on text). Now its evolved to one long, one short and a “telling” story, which usually ends up being about Camelot, Sherwood Forest or the secret land of teddy bears that lives in the closet. The whole sequence can take 45 minutes. I have to regain control here! I once seriously considered scrapping Bookninja and starting a kids reading blog based on Boy Ninja’s predilections. But then I thought, Do I have the energy?
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October 25th, 2007 at 8:27 am
It apparently takes Balls to tell parents to read to their kids.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:28 am
I wish I’d thought of that for my headline, Frankie.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Well, I’m glad the British have the Balls to tell their citizens
what to do. I wish my kids were still young enough to read to. It was a
pleasure i was loathe to give up, George.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who’s gotten sucked into an epochal, 30-minute-plus “bedtime” reading ritual! For a while, my kid had negotiated *two* chapters from chapter books, plus a short, but now we’re back to one chapter, plus 2 “kid’s books” in their entirety.
It has given me a new appreciation for the Star Wars prequels: Apparently Lucas had a four-year-old audience in mind. Nothing makes him happier than to stop and say, “hey . . . that’s just like in ‘A New Hope.’”
October 25th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
The problem is, what’s defined as a “kids’” book is changing for us – getting longer and longer. He’s always had a long attention span and we’ve been doing the odd chapter book since he was three, but he can sit and sit and sit through even the longest, most text-heavy “picture” book (personally, I think we need some better definitions here… if a book has a full spread without an illo, it can’t be called a picture book, says I). I don’t want to discourage, but I don’t have the attention span. I’m actually quite often awakened by the book falling on my face seconds after I’ve dropped off. Other times he wakes me with, “Dad? Dad? You stopped talking…” Apparently I fall asleep beside him while reading – arms in the air like a prone, somnabulistic Frankenstein, book still held open above. I’m probably giving him abandonment issues. “My dad, he was there, but not really THERE, see, Doc?” It seems I just can’t be horizontal and awake at the same time. It’s sad, but I’ve come to this point in my life where I more resemble my own father than I do myself. Sigh.
October 26th, 2007 at 7:56 am
aren’t kids supposed to have short attention spans? Whoever said that, didnt know the mind of a child who really really likes being read to.
George, is it horrifying, or comforting, when we realize that we are turning into our parents. “I’m not sleeping, i’m just resting my eyes.”
October 26th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Re: You doing a children’s literary blog – Do it, do it, do it, do it…
October 26th, 2007 at 11:42 am
I hate to be the bringer of bad news to you exhausted parents of toddlers but my teenagers still like being read to!!!
October 27th, 2007 at 8:55 am
My girlfriend and I read books together, aloud. And we ain’t kids no more.
October 27th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Yes, create a children’s literary blog – BUT, PLEASE don’t use the F word.
October 29th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Which F word? Fellatio? Fornication? Frigid? Frottage? Fruit cocktail?
There are so many F words. Please be more specific.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:49 am
frotteurism