Too busy to read to children? You’re missing out on one of life’s greatest joys

Have you heard the voice I do for the mouse in The Gruffalo children’s book? I’ve based it on that of Kenneth Horne from Round the Horne, who I realise is not so well known these days. But the voice is just perfect for the character of that brave little mouse.

Oh my God, I love reading aloud. My dreams of being an actor may have ended in tears at age 16, but with a children’s book in hand, I have a renewed chance to perform. The criticism my acting always received in school productions – “far too big, can’t you tone it down a little?” – appears no impediment to applause from this particular audience.

Books also give you a shortcut into understanding the personality of the child. Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Who doesn’t like reading books to kids? Lots of people, according to a new survey which also found 30 per cent of NSW parents and 22 per cent of Victorian parents say they’re too busy to read daily to their children.

It fits with a recent UK study finding that reading aloud to children is at an all-time low. Fewer than half of 0-to-4-year-olds are read to frequently, and fewer than half of parents of children under 13 said reading aloud to children was “fun for me”.

“Fun for me” is precisely the phrase I’d use, whether it’s the memories of reading to my own children decades ago or reading to those children’s children. Often the same books, the pages all torn and tatty.

What’s so good about reading aloud? The child, for once, is sitting still. Not tearing up and down the hallway on a tricycle, not painting bunny rabbits on the wall with Texta, not using the drawer handles as a ladder to clamber onto the stove-top, searching for the ignition.

Instead, they are sitting calmly, head leaning on your shoulder, entranced. What’s not to love?

Repetition, to be fair, can be an issue. Jemima and Big Ted’s mission to the moon has an engaging plot based on the International Space Station running out of honey, which apparently is a real problem. It’s a favourite with the current lot and, if you’ll forgive a moment of vanity, I think my Big Ted voice is quite compelling. On the other hand, is it worth reading 4371 times, when I’ve only read Anna Karenina twice?

The Big Ted story is new to our collection, but other books are like a time machine. You sit there with a child on your knee, reading Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, or CJ Dennis’ A Book for Kids, or Margaret Wild’s Toby – same copy, same knee, same time-tested accents. It may be life’s only way to make 30 years disappear.

There are even, sometimes, the same discussions. “We can read Toby if you like,” says the child, just as his father said at the same age, “as long as you promise not to cry at the end.”

A 22-minute sitcom is now seen as arduous by those used to a 22-second TikTok. Reading is suddenly a superpower.

I make the promise, though it’s tough to keep, because Toby is a book about an old and infirm dog. I break my promise, of course, just as I did 30 years before.

“But you said you wouldn’t cry,” says the child, in the same aggrieved tones as his father.

Books also give you a shortcut into understanding the personality of the child. One child always chooses the books about animals. When there’s a drawing of an animal, he strokes its fur or tenderly touches its feathers. He’s somewhere short of two years old, but I’m guessing he’ll be like this for life.

Another wants to laugh and to subvert the tale, adding our own bits. A third wants to be scared, but not too much.

Sure, sometimes you are too tired to read. Who hasn’t read a bedtime story, only to find that 20 minutes in, you’re asleep and they’re still awake? “Wake up – I need to know what happened to Tashi.”

Or there’s the experience, reading to a sleepy child in their bed, of skipping a few pages to hasten their descent into slumber (and your chance to hoe into the Sara Lee deep-dish crumble pie which awaits in the kitchen). “But you skipped a bit,” says the child, suddenly awake and now hypervigilant lest other pages be skipped.

For all of that, I’m giving them a gift. Later, hopefully, they will also read to themselves, way past bedtime, pretending to be asleep, before slipping the light back on and feasting on one, or five, more chapters.

We know the average concentration span is shrinking. Even in university literature courses, lecturers report students unable to tackle long books.

Even a 22-minute sitcom is now seen as arduous by those used to a 22-second TikTok. Reading – long-form reading – is suddenly a superpower. One of the defining divisions of the future, some say, will be between those who have the concentration span to read a book (and therefore complete other life tasks), and those who need fresh stimulation every few minutes.

So mostly I read The Gruffalo to practice my Kenneth Horne voice – it’s so good! - but there’s a useful side-effect. Together with their parents, I may be helping develop the one superpower that will matter.

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