Children and Reading

There must be writers whose parents owned no books...but I have never met one.  My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don’t read for pleasure.  When I visit their homes, the children’s rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parents’ rooms are empty.  Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood.  By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says PRIVATE-GROWNUPS KEEP OUT: a child sprawled on the bed, reading.

 - Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader