Start reading at 6-month old
Leo Lion is 74 years old, quite elderly for a well-known author very good children’s books. He says he does not know much about children, and yet, his children’s books appeal to both young and old.
The author of Little Blue, Yellow Blue, Inch l,j Inch, and several other books puts it this way, “the fact is that I really don’t make books children at all. I make them for that part of us, of myself, and of friends, which has never changed, that part which is still a child” (Lionni, 1964). Doing something silly, being adventurous, trying something new — bring out the child in us. Moments like these are captured in many popular children’s books. These books are just waiting to be read. Unfortunately, it seems that there are few takers among our young Filipino readers.
In the recently concluded Seminar Workshop for Librarian initiated by the Philippine Board on Books for Young People, a fact surfaced that books are just too expensive these days. A more disturbing fact was that the reading habit is not as consciously developed among our Filipino children as it should be. Comic books seem to attract the youngsters more than storybooks. Two factors observed to have contributed to the low interest in reading were television viewing and rote learning in schools. More and more, find children watching television at home for at least 3 to 4 hours a day. As a result, less time is spent for family interaction as well as for leisure reading.