Reading between the lines…

Reading shouldn't be ruined by censorship, but rather inculcated through a sheer love for books.

Reading shouldn't be ruined by censorship, but rather inculcated through a sheer love for books.

Published Apr 6, 2014

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Durban - “I used to be breathless with anticipation when I entered a library. I knew wonderful things, the best things, waited for me there,” says Lauri Kubuitsile of Botswana, who was among a contingent of authors in Durban recently for the Time of the Writer Festival.

Kubuitsile is the author of more than 20 books. Among them are The Second Worst Thing, Signed, Hopelessly in Love and In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata and Other Stories (the title story was shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2011).

She remembers a time when she couldn’t read.

“I used to look at my picture books and the squiggly black writing at the bottom of each page and wish I knew what was written there. I didn’t trust the adults were telling me exactly what was written in the book when they read to me. I wanted control.

“When I got to Grade 1 and we were taught to read with boring readers such as Dick and Jane, I became despondent. Is this what it is all about? See Dick run? But then I found The Cat in the Hat in the school library. I adored the irreverent cat coaxing the marginally well-behaved children to do naughty things. It was exactly up my street.

“It was the story that changed my life. I’ve been a devout reader ever since.”

She says: “I liked to stay with my characters as long as possible so I read many series books such as Laura Ingalls Wilder books, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. The more books in the series, the better for me. I also loved horse books – I read Black Beauty, National Velvet and the Misty books.”

Kubuitsile believes children should be left free to explore all types of books to keep the magic of stories alive.

“Forcing does not work. Imagine if, all of those years ago, I was forced to stick to Dick and Jane – I shudder at the thought of it. My love for reading would have been squashed before it even got started.”

The author’s sentiments are echoed by her colleagues who agree parents might mean well when they put forward a particular title for their children to read, but need to be cautious of dictating or enforcing reading, as it may turn their children off.

Mshai Mwangola, of Kenya, an academic writer whose doctoral dissertation focuses on storytelling as an art form, says she remembers the stories told to her by her godmother and great-aunt.

“My godmother was a teacher so she had a range of stories – not just indigenous, but from all over the world. As far as books are concerned, my parents, particularly my father, gave me a love for reading and were generous with providing books. I remember particularly the classic aetiological series from the East African Publishing House (The East African How, Why and When Stories). Other local classic book series included those by Barbara Kimenye and Cynthia Hunter.”

Interestingly, Mwangola says her childhood wasn’t filled with “high quality” books with good artwork and binding. But that didn’t matter to her. Even as a child, she was astute to content.

“I found it difficult to find books with children like me – urbanised and African. I think we are doing a whole lot better filling in those gaps today. We need to cultivate a multiplicity of stories for children, but also help them appreciate stories that are not part of any particular canon or from one part of the world. Children need stories that come out of their own environment, indigenous to the place they recognise most easily as home.

“They also need the gift of embracing the world and the universe as home.

“The books of my childhood stretched my imagination, prepared me for the appreciation of different realities, cultures and spaces.

“I think I learnt an appreciation of the diversity that the world is made of, that there was so much more than what existed in my little world.

“And I was challenged to use my imagination – to allow it to go wild and free and not be restricted by asking questions such as: ‘Can a hare use a phone?’

“Sadly for many, the culture of reading for the sake of reading or telling stories for the sheer enjoyment of following the imagination wherever it leads, is not a priority.”

Mwangola says: “For so many parents, and even teachers, the only books that are important are text books. Storytelling is not cultivated or coveted. I don’t know any better way of nurturing the imagination than to expose someone, child or adult, to stories of all kinds.”

In her book, Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books, Wendy Lesser writes about the way in which books fuel the imagination.

“Just about everything I know about 19th century England comes out of novels. Ditto for 19th century Russia, late 19th century France and 20th century India. Those fictional images and experiences are now so much a part of my own mind that superimposed reality pales by comparison.

“Jane Austen’s Bath is more present to me than the tourist-laden city I have actually visited, and Gogol’s Nevsky Prospect is more memorable than the mundane boulevard I saw when I finally got to St Petersburg. I will never experience Bombay from the viewpoint of its slums, as Rohinton Mistry allows me to do; I will never feel at home in the actual Paris the way I do in the Paris of Balzac, Zola or Proust. And even certain parts of America – William Faulkner’s South, Willa Cather’s south-west, Ross Macdonald’s southern California – are more familiar to me in their literary form than they are as geographical entities I have or might set foot in.”

South African writer Khulekani Magubane, whose published books include Racers Rats and Rubbish Bins, Mamela and Angels Salvation, says childhood stories need not be classic or even well-known to others and to an extent need only exist for the young child to have and cherish.

“The story I remember most fondly is a Zulu fairy tale about a deaf old man whose grandson warned him about a wondering giant every time he went out to gather firewood. The sentence of warning the boy shouted sounded similar to an instruction to gather firewood so the old man always got confused and went to gather firewood, not knowing he was being warned of danger. In the sad end, the giant ate the old man. It was quite a depressing story, but there was some humour in it.

“Other stories such as The Mother Hen and the Cornfield and The Pied Piper also come to mind. I think many children’s stories teach accurate lessons that prevail to this day.”

Kubuitsile adds: “There is a wonderful quote I always remember: ‘A non-reader lives one life, but a reader can live a thousand lives.’” - The Mercury

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