Those who say that Egyptian children are easily bored and incapable of reading a long novel, or that, in the age of TV, videos and computers, children simply have no time to read, are mistaken. The popularity of detective thrillers shows that children do want to read good, well-written books. The problem, then, is simply the quality of what is on offer.
Most books produced for children are drawn from the literary heritage of the Orient (Kalila wa Dimna, The Arabian Nights). These are works aimed primarily at adults. Whatever is suitable for children in these works has been exhausted in the past several decades. Other works draw on Western literature: Aesop, the Brothers Grimm, La Fontaine and even Walt Disney have been revisited several times. "Authors" feel no embarrassment in plagiarising these works, under the pretext that they are classics.
Other works deal with children as if they were all of pre-school age and incapable of understanding human feeling and beauty of construction. They rehash very simple ideas and do not take into consideration the pleasure a child should derive from reading them. They merely concentrate on emphasising certain educational values presented in a crass way, which leads to their rejection by the child.
Children are reluctant to read because what is written for them does not respect them sufficiently. They are not considered human beings with feelings and an imagination.
Writing for children is a great undertaking, which requires new thinking, a beautiful writing style and the ability to make reading pleasurable.
*This week's Soapbox speaker is a writer of children's stories.
Those who say that Egyptian children are easily bored and incapable of reading a long novel, or that, in the age of TV, videos and computers, children simply have no time to read, are mistaken. The popularity of detective thrillers shows that children do want to read good, well-written books. The problem, then, is simply the quality of what is on offer.