MY PARENTS WERE RIGHT!
My parents were right!
I can still hear them say, “reading comics is bad for you.” They allowed me one comic a month and my choice – ‘The Phantom’, the ghost who walks.
Maybe that’s why my primary school days were spent immersed in Enid Blyton’s ‘The Secret Seven’ and ‘The Famous Five.’ ‘Biggles’, James Bigglesworth also captured my imagination with his dramatic missions as a British pilot.
The digital age brings benefits and liabilities. Parents who fell in love with books, escaping into a world was like magic. They travelled to new places, real or imagined, had exciting adventures and solved mysteries.
Now they lament their child’s preoccupation to movement on a small screen. Cartoons have replaced comics.
Their anxiety is well founded as research shows children’s interest in reading has decreased.
That’s why I’m drawn to the theme for this year’s CBCA Book Week – kicking off with today’s announcement of the CBCA Book of the Year Award. The theme is “Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds”. For 75 years, the not-for-profit Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has provided valuable resources to encourage a love of literature among young people.
You can find out the CBCA winner here.
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