Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirtel
In my experience, it's not much to do with parents either. My parents didn't read, but at least they bought lots of books (which were very cheap in the Soviet Union). They bought lots of books for children as well. And my mother read to me when I was very little (I don't remember it myself). I was an avid reader since I was three or four and didn't need any encouraging from my parents to read. I just read everything I could get my hands on. Starting with children's books, of course. But I already read adult books as well by the time I started school.
Now my sister and my nieces grew up in the same circumstances. Lots of books at home and parents reading to them. But they didn't become readers. My sister read when she was a teenager, but lost interest in her twenties and never regained it. My nieces have never read for pleasure at all. So I think it's an inborn trait to an extent.
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My love of reading sprang when I was 5 years old, and began with Indian comics that an aunt of mine used to sell. She had a dark, large room reserved for storing a lot of comics that were of cheap quality. I carried a wired bulb like a torch to maneuver my way around the piles of books. I often wonder if that setting - climbing loads of iron framing that held the books in the dark, feeling like an Aladin - sparked a fierce love of books and English language in particular.