What'll You Pay Me?

A Cosy Little Nest – and a Bit of Bribery – Works When It Comes to Raising Readers, Writes Kate Sidley.

- Kate Sidley

Do you like a challenge? Perhaps you’re a triathlete or marathon runner. Or you’re busy with some super-clever PhD. Or you’re working on a new vaccine trial that’ll save the world. Or you’re about to cross the Atlantic on a windsurfer.

Well, here’s something that’ll stretch you to the very limits of your mental and physical capabilities: I challenge you to raise a reading child in the era of the cellphone and the iPad. Go on, show me how tough you are. Show me how you do it. Yeah, thought so.

In our family, reading is not a trivial ‘Oh well, we tried, you win some you lose some’ undertaking. We can’t conceive of anyone leading a rich and happy life without reading. It matters to us. We are readers and writers. We desperately want our children to be readers (not necessarily writers – in fact, we’re hoping for actuaries, or plumbers, or bakers, or purveyors of similar valuable goods and services).