It's never too young....

It is never too young to start reading. Books should be one of the great joys of life and even really young babies can find that joy. My daughter had her library card at three weeks old. My son, then five, picked her books for her. He was fascinated by the black and white books suitable for really young babies and hunted for them among the shelves. We were lucky- our local library next to his school- has a wonderful selection of board books, picked by a very clued-up librarian. It is only a small library (Osidge Library in Barnet- they deserve a mention) but they have really well stocked shelves.
So my little girl started her reading journey. At first she managed a few seconds, with my son discovering, to his joy, that he could read her books to her. Now, at the grand age of five months she is very interested indeed. Her father reads to her every night and just like her brother she likes 'That's not my train' by F. Watts and R. Wells, as well as the books selected from the library. Unlike her brother she also gets to hear far more advanced material, such as James and the Giant Peach, if she is feeding while I'm reading my son his latest favourite. She also gets to hear him read, not only her library books but his books from school.
I was chatting to my hairdresser about going to the library. She is a lovely woman and a devoted mother, but it had simply never entered her head to take her baby to the library. She had no idea that there was such a wonderful selection suitable for babies, nor that she would get a Bookstart pack. So I wondered if other new parents had any idea about how to go about getting such great free resources. May be this is an opportunity for libraries and Bookstart to think about connecting with parents from birth. They put all sorts of things in the Bounty pack; why not library joining cards? At a time when yet more research shows children who visit the library do better at school, we need to be thinking of ways of getting children into the library and supporting parents to take them there. It seems like a missed opportunity to not grab parents from the word go. I would want every child to have the wonderful reading experiences my children have, because reading really is one of life's greatest pleasures.