The amount of time the child spends listening to parents and other loved ones read continues to be one of the best predictors of later reading. Maryanne Wolf

I’ve discovered a fantastic Australian invention (no, not the petrol-powered lawn-edging tool that killed this morning’s birdsong): Paint the Town REaD is a fantastic literacy-building model that encourages communities to read, talk, sing and rhyme with children from birth. It includes a Reading Day that engages the whole community in reading. It’s a bit like ‘stop, drop, and read’ in schools, but instead it’s shopkeepers, politicians, sports heroes, police, business-people and high school students who stop and read aloud to children all over town. The thing I like about this model is that it’s been a grass-roots initiative, not imposed by bureaucrats. I imagine it would translate well into NZ communities.

Photo: Stories in the local pharmacy.

‘Tell all the Truth but tell it slant. Emily Dickinson

There’s talk of compulsory laptops and iPads for primary schools, but evidence suggests that books should be the priority for children. A good novel is more likely to engage the brain than a screen. Reading is a ‘neuronally and intellectually circuitous act’ (Maryanne Wolf) – or to put it another way, a novel encourages the reader’s brain to be active in the construction of the story. Wolf also argues that more indirect the writing the more enriching it is for the brain.

Clive James comments on this (in Cultural Amnesia) in his essay celebrating the eloquence of Beatrix Potter. He recalls how his own children were fascinated by slant and mysterious phrases such as ‘eight conversation peppermints with appropriate moral sentiments’ and ‘Alexander was volatile’ in The Tale of Pigling Bland (one of the great character names). James concludes that

Children like to hear good things said a thousand times.

My new honey bee novel  for children, Wings, is launched today. It grew from a couple of seeds: the pesticide threat to bees and a fascination with giant hornets (it was almost titled ‘Hornet’). While writing, I learned a lot about character ‘balance’ – they do take on their own life, but you need to nudge them now and them. I had fun with the nasty hornet (Torgo), the loopy acid-bee (Ash), and a puzzle snake (Fang). Hardest part was deciding about the death of a character. I’ve tried to create a gripping tale; and trusting in the power of story (okay, and a good editor) I hope readers will see bees in a new light.

…when reading takes place, that individual brain is forever changed, both physiologically and intellectually. Maryanne Wolf

Beautiful Tiritiri Matangi island: choirs of birds — some I’ve never seen before — and the bush as it was before humans came. I loved meeting the iridescent takahe (photo), thought to be extinct until a few were found in the Fiordland mountains in 1948. A farmer saved them by training his bantams to foster the takahe chicks: see the sweet picture book, Elwyn’s Dream, by Ali Foster of course. There are now 240 in the world. The takahe’s song sounds a lot like a baby crying for its mother (listen: takahe-song).