Love for books... everything starts in the family
In the many years I spent in the publishing sector among the ranks of professionals and in the twelve years that saw me engaged in the front line in the education of my son, I was convinced that the interest in books was born in the family, with the example of parents who read them, buy them and give them as gifts, which feed over time and with love the library of the house.
Then when mum and dad know how to add the willingness to tell stories to their children from an early age, it is in that moment of shared readings that the love for books and the pleasure of reading is imprinted on the souls of the youngest. A pleasure destined to last, because it is based on positive memories from which one can always draw in the difficult moments of life.
Reading aloud, in fact, is a unique moment of sharing between parents and children, which consolidates the relationship, increases the bond, enhances the cognitive capacity. The evocative power of stories expands over time, providing the young listener with mental images and emotional suggestions that will form his composite inner world.
Love for books... the pleasure continues also thanks to the school
If the parent tells fairy tales to his son in the right spirit... the child, while listening, feels understood in his most delicate feelings, in his most ardent desires, in his most serious anxieties and anxieties, as well as in his most fervent hopes.
Bruno Bettelheim, The Enchanted World, 1975
But if it is the family that ignites the love for books in the hearts of children, the good work of the school is crucial in order not to turn it off and continue to feed it, because a new world of knowledge and possibilities opens up in the classroom.
The school therefore has the task of teaching and developing reading skills. In fact, it is precisely on the desks that the idea that reading is not only a duty but can also be a great pleasure, a succession of joyful moments and infinite suggestions must make its way into the minds of children. The idea that books can be wonderful life companions.
How to feed the love for books at school: first step, create a library
The bad news is, it's not an easy task. But there's a good one: there are tricks that teachers can use to achieve such an important goal.
What, in my opinion, should be the first, for a strictly "organizational" issue, is the direct consequence of a piece of advice offered by Gianni Rodari: to set up a small library designed with attention and sensitivity, in which children can orient themselves according to parameters and personal points of view.
Twenty books are better than one, and one hundred better than twenty, because they can arouse different curiosities, satisfy or stimulate different interests, respond to changes in mood, personality changes, cultural training, information.
Gianni Rodari, Libri d'oggi per ragazzi d'oggi, 1967
See, touch, choose books! This is the first step to get passionate about reading, and only if the children have a good number of texts available can they make choices independently.
If we want to accept Rodari's suggestion then, the first step we can take is to provide each school with its own library managed in the most professional way possible, that is, with a constant updating of both the narrative and the most didactic texts.
It is certainly a tiring step, which requires a lot of commitment and the involvement of several people, but "it is the union that makes the strength" and, in this case, "makes the library". If the effort is shared, it becomes less tiring and, on the other hand, satisfaction multiplies.
The school library, a project that involves everyone
The thing to remember is that we all need to feel called upon. Therefore, if we
are teachers we can become convinced - and determined - promoters of the "library project" in our school, if we are managers we can support the teachers who take the initiative, even just helping them to identify the appropriate spaces and trying to pave the way for them in all the ways that are allowed, if we are parents we can contribute with suggestions for reading and books to be donated and, above all, with enthusiasm, because if we try it first we will be much easier to pass it on to our children.
How to nurture a love of books at school: the second step, dialoguing with the territory
But now no project can be closed within the walls of a room, even if it is a classroom. A respectable school library must be able to communicate with the territory in which it lives.
The second step, then, is to look around, looking for collaboration between book professionals: librarians, booksellers, publishers.
The school calls, the library answers
In many cities public libraries have a sector dedicated to children's books, for example I liked so much the space that the civic library Antonio Delfini of Modena has dedicated to its younger readers: five large rooms and equipped!
Area 0-3 with mats and playbooks, room 7-12 years for necklaces and novels, a multimedia room for adults and a smaller one only for illustrated books with armchairs and poufs and other multimedia space. Finally, to house the workshops of the kindergarten, the room of cardboard books, with tables and chairs for children. And in the corridors, comics and art books.
Another Emilian excellence that I had the opportunity to visit is the Castello dei ragazzi, a wing of Palazzo Pio entirely dedicated to the very young, in the beautiful Piazza dei Martiri in Carpi. You enter and to welcome there is the beautiful theater designed by Emanuele Luzzati, used successfully in the activities of animation, the first stop to the large rooms intended for reading.
It would be nice if Italy were to invest more in this, but why not take advantage of those that already exist? Perhaps by organizing library tours with the whole class?
The school calls, the bookstore answers
Another extraordinary meeting place for books is the bookshop. Large chains always have a large space dedicated to children's literature, but an important resource are the small dedicated shops, which have a diversified offer and plenty of space for small and medium quality publishers.
The moments in the bookshop, between books and readings aloud, without obligations, prove to be a great opportunity to develop a positive attitude with books, strengthen personal tastes, express opinions and emotions, as well as develop the linguistic intelligence of a logical sequential type, so useful for the formation of cultural structures that enrich us and that we carry with us throughout our lives.
But having contacts with good bookshops for children can be very useful not only to participate in readings, workshops or events of various kinds involving authors, educators or other professionals related to the world of childhood.
In fact, specialised bookshops are first and foremost an up-to-date source of all the new developments in the sector, because they are in constant contact with publishers, and not only the big ones - who have well-known authors and international illustrators in their catalogues - but also the smaller, more niche, ones they are experimenting with, with the result of creating real pearls that are sometimes destined to become classics.
School calls, publisher answers
And so we get directly to these other professionals of the trade, the publishers.
Everyone, but especially the youngest, always want to make their books known and get them on as many shelves as possible, libraries, bookstores, but especially homes, because this means that those books born from so much research and work have been sold and, in some cases, have become a success.
For the publisher, this translates not only into a profit - which is also one of the objectives of course - but above all into the possibility of continuing with one's own work, research, experimentation and creativity.
For this to happen, the first thing needed is visibility. For this reason, I assure you that if you contact a small publisher and explain to them that one or more of the books in his catalogue is needed for the school library, in most cases you will find on the other hand someone who is willing to at least give you a discount.
In every period of the year it is also possible to take advantage of special initiatives, in this month for example, there is the most famous national campaign for the promotion of books and reading: the May of books, an opportunity for readers of all ages.
How to feed your love for books: last but not least, knowing what to read
The offer of children's books is almost immeasurable. Children's publishing is flourishing, the sector has been growing since the 1990s. According to data from the Italian Publishers' Association, in 2015 this segment grew by 7.9% with sales reaching €182 million (source: Nielsen for AIE) and is the driving force behind the overall book market, which is heading towards the first positive signs (+0.7%).
If you have difficulty in finding your way through the many editorial proposals,
then you are right and you are certainly in good company.
There are many well-known publishing houses in the sector that have always had good production and quality authors, yet many innovative proposals, as we said, come mainly from small brands that are difficult to find in bookshops.
So how to choose?
Considering that the very criterion used in the classification according to age remains, in my opinion, a random variant - children of the same age can have very different tastes and attitudes - I believe that a book to be considered "good" must propose an original story, with a current language but not poor, indeed, full of details that stimulate imagination and enrich the lexicon, should not fall into the banality and should not have an educational purpose.
Or rather, the educational message, if there is one, in order to be effective and not to penalize the literary value of the text, must arise in a natural way from the story told, without forcing.
These are, in my opinion, the characteristics that an exciting book must have. And exciting stories offer cues, keys to interpreting reality, a different point of view, a new spatial and temporal perspective. In short, a good book promotes and stimulates the reader's critical capacity, leading him, through unknown paths, to other readings.
