By Mursi Saad El-Din There is an English saying that goes something like this, "You can take the horse to the water but you cannot get it to drink." I always think of this saying when I read about the progress of the vital programme initiated by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, Reading for All. Through this programme millions of copies of books are published, hundreds of new libraries inaugurated, dozens of media advertisements appear, but the question always remains: what about the readers? Reading is a habit that should be cultivated from childhood. Unfortunately we in Egypt and the Arab countries have not been reading peoples. For us the book -- apart, of course, from textbooks -- is not a commodity the way it is in other countries. You very rarely find an Egyptian home with a well- stocked library. You may find a few books here and there, but a library in the proper sense of the word is a rarity. I lived in London for 12 years, during which time my son was born. And I was overwhelmed with the way the love of reading is instilled in children. Dozens of comics, hundreds, indeed thousands, of children's books were published. The names of the writers of children's books, like Enid Blyton, were as big as those of great writers like Graham Greene or E M Forster. Reading seemed to be part of the national character. I was impressed by the number of Underground passengers who poring over books. Even some of those standing would hold onto the strap with one hand keep an open book in the other. I witnessed the same phenomenon in the Paris metro and the Moscow underground. Books were designed to make them easier to carry. Hence the invention of what came to be called "pocket editions", and it was a common thing indeed to see the jacket pocket of an Englishman bulging with one such. The question that has preoccupied me is how, having taken it to the water, can we get the horse to drink. With the great number of books published in the Reading for All Programme, how can we get the children to read? I have just finished reading an article in a London newspaper by Michael Morpurgo, a writer of children's books. It has the title "To read or not to read", and in it he explains how he became the avid reader he is now. "My childhood home", he writes, "groaned with books, every wall lined with them. My mother read to me in bed when I was little. She made words sound like music, and I loved them." But this sound of music died away when he went to school, where words were learnt by heart, and where he was told that reading "was good for me, like cod liver oil". Thus he moved from the stage of listening to that of reading. It was natural that the books of Enid Blyton made up his first experience in this regard. At that point, too, he discovered comics, a speciality of Western countries. Comics have always been subject to controversy. There were two schools of thought: psychologists, sociologists and educationalists believe that comics are bad for the young and therefore should be obliterated; enthusiasts believe they are a step on the way to serious reading. But to go back to Morpurgo and his reading experience. He began to read such well- known classics as were suitable for both children and grownups: Treasure Island, A Tale of Two Cities, Moby Dick, Lorna Doone etc. After giving his history with reading, Morpurgo gives his recipe to encourage young people to love books. "Parents need to read to their children," he says, "as my mother did, to sow the seed, inculcate in them an early fascination with stories and poems. Primary teachers need to use books, not simply as educational tools to achieve specific outcomes, but to enjoy them. They need well-stocked libraries to do it. The best teachers will love books for themselves and want to pass this on. Children, particularly teenagers, must never feel there are any oughts and ought-nots." The author closes by saying, "we come to reading when we come to it. It cannot be hurried or forced, but can and must be encouraged!"
