Chez Spud

I was slow to get to this book. A friend thrust it in to my hand back in the Autumn with a cheery, “I think you’ll love it”. That’s all the recommendation I need from a trusted source. I stashed it away and promptly lost it. Just as I was becoming mildly anxious about it, it revealed itself to me on the bookshelf and I took that as a sign that its turn had come.

There’s a quietness to Out Stealing Horses, a stillness that puts me in mind of Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, Cold Mountain and The Girl with Glass Feet (oh I loved that book, must re-read). Naturally, being unable to recall the details of any book that I’ve read within weeks of having finished it, I can’t tell you why. But if you’ve read any of those books, then you’ll understand what I mean about the stillness, the long lines. Out Stealing Horses is set in Norway, and weaves its story between the present day and immediately after WWII. The story is narrated by Trond, a teenager in the post-war years and now a man in his late 60s. Trond’s relationship with his father is the focus of the plot, and the life-long influence and implications of a tragedy to which both Trond and his father are party to (albeit indirectly). Actually the plot seems secondary to the beautiful, lyrical language of the book and its thoughtful observations. It’s far from purple prose, but the parred down descriptions of the Norwegian countryside together with the lack of any substantial analysis of the protagonists’ personalities and motives make for a very spare, elegant novel.

The other book on the go at the moment is ‘Stop what you’re doing and read this‘, which I mentioned last week. In it, Mark Haddon (he of ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time) mentions that the pleasure of reading is “rarely about plot, which is probably why I can’t remember what happens even in some of my favourite novels”. Ah, perhaps that’s my issue too? Certainly Out Stealing Horses isn’t plot driven, though what it is that pushes it along instead is hard to define. Very possibly its elegant language. Haddon, in the same essay, says that find its hard to “fall utterly in love with novels in translation”. He says that a novel in which the words are used “merely to convey a story seems to me a waste of words. I want to hear the instrument cherished and played exquisitely”. Of course I can’t know if Out Shooting Horses is a fine translation or not but, regardless, it’s certainly not a waste of words.

I’m now half way through The Reader (Bernhard Schlink), again a translation. The translation seems more apparent than in Out Shooting Horses, or perhaps I’m more attuned to it with Haddon’s thoughts rattling around in my mind. But the plot is more engaging, and the language less compelling.

Out Stealing Horses…B++

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The 6yo listening to the 4yo reading. Not shown: mummy loafing around drinking booze, smoking fags and cackling wildly.

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I’m squirming in my seat as I write this. The words ‘I was wrong’ might actually have to come out of my mouth. That never sits comfortably with me to be honest. Still, good for the soul and all that.

In the past I have been quite forthright in my criticism of reading books in any other format other than ‘the right one’, i.e. an actual book with paper and a cover. I may even have blogged about how reading isn’t just about the words, it’s a sensory thing. I may, possibly, have been very critical of MrSpud and his strange love of reading books on his iphone.

Hmm. Funny how things come back to haunt you sometimes isn’t it? Damn you blog, for providing evidence of my fickle ways…

Two weeks ago I read three books in five days. But that’s not what this is about. I had a day of very, very long train journeys and I decided to experiment by downloading a couple of books on Kindle for the iPad (which, I gather, is on its way out?). I was dubious. I was so dubious I took my book, an actual book, as well which perhaps defeated the point. In one day I galloped through Caitlin Moran’s How to Be a Woman and I loved it.  Encouraged, though shame faced, I quickly downloaded Tina Fey’s Bossypants. I don’t even know who Tina Fey is really, but I enjoyed that too.  In a rush of KindleLove I then bought Grace Dent’s How to Leave Twitter and that was pretty good too.

I’m no book reviewer, and this isn’t a book review. En passant I will mention that Caitlin Moran’s book is absolutely extraordinary, it blew me away actually (once I’d got over its no mucking about straight up tell it how it is style). I have never considered myself a feminist because, it turns out, I never really KNEW what feminism means anymore. I thought it didn’t apply to me. Turns out I’m stupid. You’ll have to read it to get it. If you’re a woman, or a man who loves women, you need to read it. Hey, I read it in a DAY. I don’t give over a day of my life for any old crap you know.

But this isn’t about the book. This is about the medium for the reading thereof and I think you know what’s coming.  I read the book on my iPad. And I really, really enjoyed the experience. I thought it would be a kind of clinical experience, and it is in some ways. But the convenience, the beauty of the backlight typeface, not having to hold a heavy book is quite beguiling.  I’m ashamed of myself.

I don’t want to fall out of love with books (the real ones). I LOVE books, they do so furnish a room, they feel and look just right…I keep postcards and newspaper cuttings in them (well, I did when I read newspapers..before the internet came along…hang on….there’s a theme here). I would hate never to feel the weight of a good book, smell it, admire its cover and run my fingers over the paper to feel how it ‘is’. But there’s a place in my life now for online reading.

I have a half-read copy of The Tiger’s Wife by my bed. It’s been half read since I started reading How to be a Woman. Since then I’ve read Bossypants (on the iPad), How to Leave Twitter (on the iPad) and I’ve made a start on Home (also on the iPad).

Shameful. Absolutely shameful.

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**Disclaimer: this post will not be of any interest unless you live in the UK and have a young child…to the rest of you: move along…nothing for you to see here…**

Oxford University Press proudly boast that their reading scheme, Oxford Reading Tree is used by ‘most primary schools’. I have no reason to doubt that this is true, but the question is ‘why?’. Why do schools persist in using the ORT, an old style ‘look and say’ reading scheme when, in the wake of the Rose report of 2006, all schools now teach reading using synthetic phonics which should have made those ‘look and say’ books instantly redundant?  In fact, the Rose report specifically singled out the ORT (albeit without naming it) for criticism. The only reasonable explanation is the sheer cost involved with replacing a whole reading scheme which, I assume, must run to thousands and thousands of pounds. It always comes down to money I suppose.

The Department of Education sets out the criteria for reading schemes here. It quite clearly states that schemes should support learning to read using synthetic phonics and should;

• “ensure that as pupils move through the early stages of acquiring phonics, they are invited to practise by reading texts which are entirely decodable for them, so that they experience success and learn to rely on phonemic strategies”.

The italics are mine. So, the government wants early readers to have access to books which are ‘fully decodable’ (using phonic strategies) yet many (or most if you believe OUP) are still using ‘look and say’ schemes. It’s madness to give children the tools that they need to make a confident start with reading by teaching them phonics, and then throw non-decodable books at them. Likewise, why bother with a solid phonic grounding if you’re going to use a reading scheme which relies heavily on picture clues and repetition.

Synthetic phonics doesn’t work for every child, but it works for most children and all the research has demonstrated that it leads to a higher level of literacy than other methods. The old ‘look and say’ method often works very well in the early stages of reading since most children (a) have fantastic memories and can memorise quite a large number of words by sight and (b) most children will happily ‘guess’ the word once they’ve got the first letter and the picture is giving them a clue. But that’s not reading! As I understand it, the problems can start once their memories can no longer cope with having simply memorised words by sight…around the 150 word mark. Many children will stall at that point, or when the picture/word ratio means they can’t simply guess. And if they don’t have a solid grounding in decoding then what strategies will they use to actually ‘read’ the text?

Bertie (5yo) is reading a mix of ‘look and say’ books (sent home from school) and ‘decodable books’ (provided by us), having learnt to read at home using only decodable books before he started school. At some point all readers have to move to ‘non decodable books’ of course, so in some ways it’s not a bad thing to mix things up like this. Diggy (4yo) is in the early stages of reading too and, again, only uses decodable books.

I’m not much of a book reviewer but, for anyone interested, I used the excellent Cbeebies ‘Fun with Phonics’ books to teach both boys to read (having taught them the basic phonics). I really can’t recommend these enough, very clear and simple with absolutely minimal use of tricky words (such as ‘the’…which you can’t really get away with in any book!). Quite different than ORT which chucks in all manner of random tricky words right from the start. Why?

Neither of my boys really ‘love’ that whole Jolly Phonic actions for sounds, so I didn’t bother with that. We just learnt the sounds straight up through repetition, mostly using a poster on their bedroom wall which presents the sounds in the ‘usual’ groupings (set 1: s,a,t,i,p,n, etc etc).

From there, I moved on to the excellent Dandelion Readers. Again, really outstandingly good. They work through each phonic, digraph etc in a very methodical way. Then they work through split vowels, alternative spellings for individual sounds etc. The illustrations are interesting, but intentionally do not give clues to the reader to avoid guessing.

Other schemes we’ve used and enjoyed are Rigby Phonics, Project X (fantastic, non-fiction books aimed at boys), Floppy’s Phonics (again excellent, fiction and non-fiction…and published by OUP!), AlphaKids and Ladybird ‘Superhero Phonic Books’.

Interestingly, Bertie finds reading non-fiction books more of a challenge than fiction. I suppose it’s because there is less repetition in a non-fiction book (no names that constantly crop up, no ‘he said’, ‘she asked’ etc etc). Storybooks, and in particular those Biff & Chip ORT books, are often very formulaic and he whizzes through them because of this. Non-fiction books are a slower read, since he will stop to ask questions or discuss issues in a way that he doesn’t when reading a story. Plus, we’ve learnt about how to use a ‘contents’ and ‘index’. All good stuff.

It won’t be long before our ‘reading scheme’ days are behind us and, whilst we’ve enjoyed so many of the books we’ve done as ‘home reading’ I won’t be sad to see the back of Biff ‘n’ Chip ‘n’ Kipper ‘n’ Floppy and the gang. Though I do enjoy hunting for the ‘hidden’ glasses…:-)

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I can’t bear to think about or discuss moving or packing or unpacking any more. Our other house has flooded, with exquisite timing, and it’s very miserable for our tenants and stressful for us.

So instead of ‘that’ I’m going to think about ‘this’, which is much more joyful. Here’s Bertie on Christmas Day, lounging around with all the books he’s read with me since September. Not including books sent home from school we’ve ready nearly 70 books together, woohoo! Add in the school books and it must be knocking on for double that.

I love watching him gobble up the words, blending the new sounds, extended phonics, alternate spellings, the joy of the ‘magic e’ and the curse of those tricky words. I love listening to him read to Diggy, or reading to himself (finger pointing oh..so…carefully) and being part of the transition from halting to galloping along has been a true joy for both of us. “Oh! Time for my reading Mummy!” he says and peers under the cupboard where, for reasons I can’t remember, I keep his stash of ‘home’ reading books. When he’s finished one he likes to take the next one out, practice the new sound/sounds it introduces and study it. I admire his diligence and his enthusiasm is massively infectious. I’ve found that I have to look at the next book too, and study the notes for introducing the next sound etc that we’re about to tackle. Teaching Bertie to read had meant I have had to lean HOW to do it, and it’s all so different from the way I learnt. We’re both on a journey…I’m learning how to teach reading…he’s learning how to read but much, much more importantly he’s learning to love literature.

Can you instill a love of literature in someone? Does it follow that ‘can read = loves reading’…I would think not. So how does the joy of reading for reading’s sake come about? All the research says that good literacy for children comes from witnessing parents reading books, having books around the house, reading books together and all that. But how does that light the fire for a child to LOVE books and really know that ‘you’re never alone with a book’.

Bertie likes to pull our books off the shelves, and pick out words he either knows by sight or can decode. He’s so terribly keen to be able to read Asterix, TinTin and Harry Potter to himself…and the Roald Dahl stories he knows. And I’m so keen to be part of the journey, his partner along the road. Nearly always Bertie will read with me, I’m quite selfish about it actually. Mostly it’s because I’m the one who has learnt how to teach reading using modern techniques but, frankly, it’s because I love love love it so much. MrSpud reads voraciously, but never ever novels…he likes history, biographies, science stuff blah.

Me? I like novels. Sometimes biographies and especially books of letters. And I love discussing books, sharing ideas for good reads, reading books reviews. Loving literature goes way, way beyond just reading the words.

We’ll see how it goes but I’d love to read with my boys every night until they leave home. I read this wonderful article in the New York Times a while back about a father and daughter who read together every night for over 3,000 nights. They made a pact, and stuck to it. What an achievement! It’s not just about the words and the mechanics of reading…it’s about finding a love of literature and shared passions together. I am so thrilled when I find people who adore my favourite writers, it’s like we’re in a club together.

I’m eager for my boys to be in the club. They might not like my favourites, but if we could find new favourites together I would just adore it.

Loving literature…loving that boy, his cheeky smile and his ever growing pile of ‘already read’ books.

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We have books in our house. Stop press! Hold the front page etc etc. Well, there have always been books here…but stacked up in quiet corners and mostly in plastic boxes awaiting book shelves. Said shelves are now up, books are out of the boxes and are on the shelves and I could NOT be more pleased.

Well, that’s a lie. I would be much more pleased if all our books were on the shelves but the house is too small to house more than a teeeny weeny selection of our huge book collection. Ah well, a little of what you fancy does you good and all that.  So, until we move again, we are living on reduced rations of books…just our ‘capsule wardrobe’ if you will.

A smidge under 18 months ago we packed up our lives and moved out of London, from a large house to a small one. We knew we’d only have space for a fraction of our book collection, so most went in to storage whist the lucky few came with us.  What fascinates me now, seeing the ‘lucky few’ on the shelves, is which books ‘made it’ and which are languishing in storage. All our cookbooks are here (nothing to do with me, that’s MrSpud’s department although strangely most of them are actually mine), dictionaries (why? when did any of us last look at a dictionary), atlases, reference books for birds and flowers, books of poetry and, randomly, a bible, missal and a prayer book. There are books that we thought the boys might like at some point in the next few years, but the rest are Special Books which we thought we’d like to re-read to at least have around us.

All the books that ‘made it’ make sense to me. But what is SCREAMING at me are the ones that aren’t here. Where are my collected Betjemin letters? My Evelyn Waugh? My Mitford sisters collection? All my academic music books? My Barbara Trapido novels? My Penguin classics? A Dance to the Music of Time? The Raj Quartet? My Margaret Atwood? The Alexandria Quartet? My PD James collection? Jeeves & Wooster? Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow? Behind the Scenes at the Museum? Cold Mountain? Louis de Berniere’s stuff? Iris Murdoch for that matter? All my travel writing books…and especially William Darymple (although, phew, City of Djinns is here). My vast collection of entirely useless parenting books….?

And, much more interestingly, what about the rest of them that I can’t even remember now? Should I bin them when they finally see the light of day again, since I’m clearly not missing them?

To add to the ‘niggling’ about the forgotten books I’m now worrying about the 18 boxes of books that we gave away about a year before we moved out of London. We’d run out of room. A wall of bookshelves had to make way for a vast toy cupboard and the books had to go. It was so painful at the time but I couldn’t tell you what we got rid of. Now that’s a worry. Books we kept for years and years and then dumped. What if they miss us?And I might well be missing them if only I knew what they were…

Will this be a lifelong anxiety I wonder? Will there be a constant cycle of buying, keeping and releasing books? I suppose so. I can’t imagine we’ll ever have space to keep all the books we already own plus the drip, drip, drip of new purchases. I’m much better about ‘releasing’ books as I read them these days. Possibly a side effect of 18 months without anywhere to keep them. Plus a realisation that there aren’t enough years in a life to read everything you want to read, never mind re-read with any kind of conviction. So it’s better to read and release as you go, I think. To avoid the pain of those 18 boxes departing all in one go.

MrSpud has a friend who disproves of keeping ANY books. He’ll give you any book he’s read but only if you promise to lend it on, no ‘stashing’ is allowed. I admire this is a kind of minimalism, although it alarms me in equal measure. Surely books have a role beyond the immediate reading thereof? ‘Books Do Furnish a Room’ is one of the 12 novels that form my number 1 ‘desert island’ read (A Dance to the Music of Time)…the title comes from a scene where one of the characters is dispatched to buy books ‘by the yard’ since ‘books do furnish a room’. I think there’s no escaping the decorative nature of books, and surely their simple visual appeal shouldn’t be overlooked?

My books also double as memory boxes. Most of my ‘lifers’ include mementos from the time I first read them: postcards I received, newspaper clippings, programmes from concerts I attended. Actually I do this so infrequently now, a measure perhaps of how little I read compared with the Before Children years. I must start to do this again, as I’ve really enjoyed rediscovering these ‘clippings’ from Days of Yore in the past few days.

Interestingly, arranging the books on the shelves wasn’t the tortuous task it’s been in the past. Until now there has been a definite ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ approach with me and MrSpud painstakingly avoiding the mingling of our book collections. Then, for me at least, there has been a very defined approach to keeping author/genre etc grouped appropriately. Apparently we don’t care any more. We just shoved them on the shelves as they came out of the box, more or less. It’s making for a kind of literary ‘lucky dip’ approach but I think I live with it. More or less….although I’d like to state for the record that I am never EVER going to read the bloody Ring Cycle. Farking faerie nonsense.

Books which I will never, ever part with:

1. Four Letters of Love: Niall Willams

2. As it is in Heaven: Niall Williams

3. Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems

4. Edward Thomas: Selected Poems

5. Writing Home: Alan Bennett

6. Learning to Swim: Clare Chambers

7. City of Djinns: William Darymple

8. The Music of the Spheres: Elizabeth Redfern

9. Someone at a Distance: Dorothy Whipple

10. The Priory: Dorothy Whipple

11. Attention All Shipping: Charlie Connelly

There are others which should be on the list but they are in storage so, clearly, it would be a lie to say I will never be parted from them. Hmmmmm.

Me and books. It’s not black & white, it goes beyond that. It’s complicated…

x

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Try to ignore MrSpud’s truly appalling hair here…oh and my dreadful photography…try to focus on the 8 month old Bertie, finally understanding that books are for reading and not eating. I think I could recite that book in my sleep, plus the accompanying ridiculous noises I made to accompany each page (“This cow can moo”…me: ‘moooooo mooooo’. This cow is blue”…me: ‘cry cry cry’). Fast forward a couple of years and he’s not eating  books, he’s READING books! Whole books! Not eaten whole, read whole. What a long way we’ve come.

I feel overwhelmingly proud of him, even prouder than when he learnt to ride a bike without stablisers. I loved that moment, watching him scoot off in to the distance…because I remember how it felt to do it, how it felt like being handed your freedom on a plate (ha, how wrong). And I love the reading even more than his first totally unaided swim, because swimming is about safety around water and having fun confidently and not much more than that.

But reading is a gift forever, and a shared joy. It’s like letting him in to ‘the club’. It’s the beginning of losing yourself in a book, of being able to dive in to other worlds anytime you please, the start of building his own collection of ‘best favourites’, old favourites, new discoveries…that’s why I’m so thrilled about this new development; because I’m so excited for him.

He could hardly contain his joy, as we made our way through his first ‘whole book’…word by word, sentence by sentence. Every now and I again I asked if he’d had enough, ‘NO!’, he’d half laugh, half shout. He has this funny little chuckle thing that goes on when he’s pleased with how something that he’s doing is turning out, it melts my heart actually..kind of, ‘oh! I’m doing it I’m DOING it!!”.

Yes you are Mr Bertie, you ARE doing it and I love that you are. xx

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