Day Dreaming

Nice article on the need for libraries, reading and day-dreaming- the three things that were integral to my own childhood but I struggle to build into J's life in the same organic way. The public library is across the street from our home so we do go there a lot, J reads but not nearly as much as I would like. But the biggest miss by far is the day dreaming. There is too little time in the day when she is not busy and yet untethered from her electronics - the quality of time needed to indulge in daydreaming. 

I could not agree more with Gaiman on the value of reading fiction - specially for kids

Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it's a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if it's hard, because someone's in trouble and you have to know how it's all going to end … that's a very real drive. And it forces you to learn new words, to think new thoughts, to keep going. To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. Once you learn that, you're on the road to reading everything. And reading is key.

And Gaiman also called out the error of my ways - something I will now remedy

Do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is a route to other books you may prefer. And not everyone has the same taste as you.

Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian "improving" literature. You'll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant.