Encouraging Reading Books From A Young Age

Thoughts & Reflections

By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee

In an age where the electronic screen in the form of the smartphone in the hand has become a universal phenomenon, available to all age-groups as early as toddlers! – it would seem an anachronism to write about reading books. It is a fact that reading in electronic format has become so ubiquitous now as to replace the actual reading of material in the traditional form of print – books, magazines, newspapers.

Encourage reading in your home. Pic – Southern Living

Versions of the latter, including some of the most prestigious titles in the world, have had to close down and go digital instead. This is true for our local newspapers also, which are now read mostly in digital form, a trend which gained traction during the Covid pandemic and has since become standard. No doubt this is a reality we cannot get away from and represents the future mode for the current and coming generations.

Those of us of the earlier generations still clamour for print versions, and many subscribers to this paper known to me used to ask me when the print version would become available again once the Covid pandemic had passed.

It is also a fact that many bookshops have closed down, which is indeed a pity. Because the electronic format may replace but is no substitute for a book. The former can disappear at the touch of a click, but a book is forever! A book is like an old, trusted friend. To whom you can go back again and again.

As the Roman philosopher, statesman, and writer said, ‘A room without a book is like a body without a soul.’

The electronic format undoubtedly presents certain advantages, such as quasi-instantaneous and widespread access across the world to a larger audience. However, the pleasure of reading a book can never be matched by doing so with the digital equivalent. Curling up with a book in your lap as you doze off, especially on winter evenings, is not the same as doing so with a tablet or a laptop – besides the fact that this can be positively dangerous!

When I see the millions of people looking down at smartphones in their hands, most of the time, head bent forward and the back somewhat stooped, I am given to wonder whether at some time in the distant future if this trend continues, we will have generations born with hunched backs and heads down instead of looking up, and shortened fingers! A kind of unintended consequence of science and technology, which the French geneticist Albert Jacquard described as ‘les effets pervers de la science’ in an article with the same in Le Monde Diplomatique. In this case a physical habit would have become a hereditary trait, in line with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Though I hope not…

In our time as schoolchildren, at both primary and secondary levels, books were our prized and precious possessions, carefully covered and passed down to younger siblings. Our teachers used to make us read aloud from them, and reciting poems learnt by heart not only sharpened our memories but also improved our articulation.

At the college, there used to be a library period once a week, when we would all go to the library and read in silence, choosing from magazines that were neatly displayed on a rack, or from books that lined the bookshelves in rows. Books on all subjects, catering to everybody’s taste.

I genuinely feel that this custom, that is the library period, should be introduced again if it is not done. And also reading aloud, and reciting poems. They will make for more rounded personalities in the students and reduce the risk of mental health issues which plague modern society, according to frequent reports that one comes across.

I include magazines as well as books, many of which have influenced the course of human events. One such book is ‘Nineteen Eighty-four’ by the English writer George Orwell, which I had read many years ago from the library and read afresh when I bought a copy some years ago.

And just a few days back, while clearing a box of magazines, I picked up an old issue of The New Yorker (January 18, 1999) which carried a long article on him. Going through it, I learnt for the first time that he had a career as a journalist too. It was interesting to read that he ‘showed what can only be described as intellectual heroism’ and that because of ‘his unpalatable opinions’, he had ‘restricted access to mainstream publications – most of his commentaries were written for Tribune, an influential but small-circulation weekly newspaper backed by the Labour Party’s star heavyweight, Aneurin Bevan.’

Aneurin Bevan was the architect of the National Health System, and the current Labour Party there is a caricature of the original one, but that’s another story.

It was also quite revealing to read, further, ‘when he (Orwell) argued, in the columns of the Tribune, that the mass-circulation newspapers forced slop on their readership,’ a correspondent responded that ‘it was really the readership forcing slop on the newspapers.’ Hence tabloids and page 3 scandals that make the headlines, I wondered.

It is noteworthy that restriction to mainstream access didn’t stop him from becoming one of the most famous and widely read authors, to this day, in the world, with his two most well-known books,‘Nineteen Eighty-four’ that came after ‘Animal Farm’ (1945).

I am sure that readers will have their own favourites. One of the websites that I visit regularly is ‘BigThink’ which has recently come up with a new feature, introduced as follows: ‘Hi, I’m Kevin Dickinson, and welcome to the first issue of Big Think Books! Every month, I get the privilege of exploring the ideas and authors changing how we understand our world. But I don’t just want to tell you what’s new on the shelves; I want readers to engage with the conversations these books spark and the questions they leave us with. If you’re someone who loves to read and indulge their curiosity, you’re in the right place.’

Similarly, the science magazine Nature carries every month an online review of five recently published science books which allows one to keep up with ideas and questions to ponder.

Nothing better than to conclude with some quotations about books and reading:

‘One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.’ – Cosmologist Carl Sagan

‘Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: They feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.” – Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

‘Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world.’ – Jeanette Winterson

‘Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from one generation to the next. Books save lives.’ – Laurie Anderson

‘The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.’ – Rene Descartes

“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” – Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

‘You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.’ – James Baldwin

‘A book is a gift you can open again and again.’ – Garrison Kellor

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 25 April 2025