Are you shaped by the books you read as a kid? These people think so.

Wed, 04 Mar, 2015 - 00:00

Jonathan de Burca Butler

TOMORROW, school children will participate in World Book Day, which is now in its 18th year. It encourages children to explore the pleasure of books and reading.

An incentive for each pupil to visit bookshops is a €1 voucher that can be redeemed against a pre-selected list of ten books.

“Reading fiction opens childrens’ minds and expands their horizons,” says author Anna McPartlin.

“It encourages curiosity, focus, creative thinking and feeds the brain. I think its importance is undeniable. A book is also great company.”

McPartlin, who has penned six novels since giving up a successful career in insurance, has fond memories of reading as a child. The 42-year-old says that she spent much of her time indoors, due to her mother’s multiple sclerosis. She recalls countless hours distracting herself by “drawing, painting and reading”.

“My first book love was the Topsy & Tim series,” she says.

“I was five and had just moved to Dublin from Kerry. My mother took me to the local library, which quickly became my second home.

“As a kid, I remember Saturday being the day I ate McDonalds and bought a new Enid Blyton book. I was usually finished it by Monday evening, and then I’d wish away the rest of the week.

“What I loved about Enid was that she wrote so many series, The St Clare’s twins, Mallory Towers, The Famous Five, which blew my tiny mind, and The Secret Seven.

“ I got to inhabit familiar worlds and yet the story was always new.”

RTÉ Junior presenter, actress and writer, Muireann Ní Chíobháin, was surrounded by books and avid readers from an early age.

Every day after school, she and her two sisters would stop by their library in her native Cork, where the “ever-helpful Carole” would recommend the latest releases.

“My memories of reading are often of me on the top bunk of my bedroom, reading, and my little sister in the bottom bunk, below, constantly interrupting me by spelling out the words she didn’t know,” she says.

“It was a clever ploy to get me to read my story aloud to her, which I inevitably always ended up doing, in an effort to continue reading my own story uninterrupted.”

Muireann was encouraged to read and her family knew people involved in the business. Family friend and book publisher, Steve McDonagh, often brought her books and would encourage her to review them.

“I remember, he gave me a copy of To School through the Fields, by Alice Taylor, when I was eleven,” says Muireann.

“I became a big fan of hers and he arranged for me to meet her in her home, in West Cork, where we chatted about books and writing.

“He always said that the best way to become a writer was to be a reader and that has always stayed with me.

“From an early age, I wanted to be a writer and even asked Santa for a typewriter, when I was nine. I wrote my first novel on it that Christmas; painstakingly typed each page and stapled it together.

“I decided to sell copies in the local corner shop. Both copies flew off the shelf and sold out. It was a bestseller, thanks to my mother and Mr. Murphy, the shopkeeper.”

Since that encouraging start, Muireann has broadened her writing horizons.

Her work can often be seen and heard on RTÉ Junior, where she has written for Tell Me a Story, Story Time and Shhh It’s Quiet Time.

For Muireann, fiction inspires an inquisitive and innovative nature in young readers.

“It makes you question the world, and the possibilities in life, through the fictional worlds of characters,” she says.

“It is an escape from reality that both entertains and questions our thoughts and conventions. In fiction, children are often offered characters and scenarios they can relate to.

“Characters can be written allies and inspirational friends to turn to again and again with each read. Reading obviously helps to develop imagination and creativity of thinking, but, more importantly, I think it makes children question the world in which we live.”

“You can’t underestimate the effect reading fiction has on children,” says actor and comedian Ardal O’Hanlon.

“It helps them to learn how to think for themselves and develop a value system. It also expands their minds and their vocabulary, which is no harm either.”

Ardal says his love of books comes from his mother, who is a voracious reader.

“My memory is unreliable, but I’m pretty sure she would have read nursery rhymes to me as a baby,” he says. “I know I read everything I could get my hands on.

“The Chronicles of Narnia spring to mind, as do The Secret Seven and the Arabian Nights. Once, when I was sick in bed, I was handed two books, one on the Impressionists and the other on Ancient Egypt, both of which, despite a serious bout of diarrhoea, I greatly enjoyed.”

Ardal recalls there being a huge emphasis on educational books in his house.

History books and encyclopaedias were de rigueur and, of course, as the son of a local TD, there were always newspapers.

“When I was in primary school, I used to race home at lunchtime to read the newspaper,” he says.

“I distinctly remember, one day, saying to the lads in the playground, ‘did you hear General Franco died?’ and everybody just running away. I don’t think I discriminated much in terms of what I read. I was equally at home with the classics of children’s literature, Robert Louis Stevenson or the likes of Mark Twain and Shoot! magazine…or the back of a Cornflakes box.”

Whatever the medium, the message is clear. Read, read and, when you’ve finished reading, read some more.

My favourite books to give to a child/teenager

Muireann Ní Chíobháin

I would give them Matilda, by Roald Dahl. I think it’s a wonderful book, about a brave and clever girl who loves to read.

It has all of the best things a book should have: magic, humour, a villain, a hero who triumphs, friendship and lots and lots of imagination.

It’s an entertaining book, from start to finish, and a firm favourite of mine, because it offers the message that reading is powerful and, in Matilda’s case, even magical.

Ardal O’Hanlon

If I could force a child (early teens) to read one book, I’d probably plump for To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, which, I’m delighted to see, is on the Junior Cert.

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]As well as being a brilliant coming-of-age story and a heart-stopping thriller, it zooms in on one of the biggest issues facing this or any time: racism.