Bryony's Blog

Over the last couple of years, I have developed a strong interest in investigating why some children are readers and others are not.  My interest arose after marking a particularly appalling set of exam papers for Grade 8 (12-13 year olds) in February of 2010.  All but a few managed to write an essay that had a beginning, middle and end, that used paragraphs and that contained a well-narrated, interesting storyline.  I started reading widely on the subject and also asked the pupils themselves what they had read as children and what their parents had read to them.  I was shocked to find that more than half could not remember anyone reading to them at all.  I was also shocked to find out how many of them had televisions and/or playstations in their rooms.  I came to the conclusion that, though I was teaching at a private school, many of the pupls had actually suffered some degree of emotional neglect: some hardly saw their parents at ...

The best books are the ones you don't want to end.  I can think of a few books like this that I read, and then reread, as a child.  'The Magic Faraway Tree' was one and 'The Adventures of the Wishing Chair' is another.  Luckily, there were three books in 'The Faraway' series and two in 'The Wishing Chair', but I am sure I probably wished there were more.  Considering how much I loved these books, and I know there is a whole fan club out there dedicated to them, it really is no surprise to see that someone has decided to continue both the stories.  Silky, the beautiful fairy with lovely silken hair, now appears in a series of her own entitled 'Enchanted World' and Jack, Jessica and Wishler have replaced Peter, Molly and Chinky in 'The New Adventures of The Wishing Chair'.  Although I can well understand why someone would want to continue the stories as I imagine they loved them as much as I did, there is also something really objectio...

I recently paid a visit to Ndola Public Library, a rather shabby looking establishment on Independence Way (no irony lost there).   I expected to find little in the way of books   - perhaps a few paperbacks in much need of repair, or maybe even no books at all.   I wouldn’t have been surprised if it hadn’t been turned into one of the ubiquitous Internet cafes I see round town, or a cell phone shop, full of beautiful, but blank, shop assistants who’d stare at me in confused amazement if I’d ask where the books were.                   Instead, I entered a place of complete and utter quiet.   The atmosphere was one of studious occupation:   all the tables were taken with people doing research and the shelves were full of books.   A closer look revealed them to all be of the hardback variety with red or brown covers and gold or black lettering on the spines.   I felt as though ...

If I had to name one major difference between my life in Zimbabwe and my present life here in Zambia, it would be this:  that here I feel I don't have enough time and that my life lacks an adequate structure that would enable me to have more time.  Some may say this is a natural consequence of having two young children and that I would feel this lack of time wherever I lived in the world.  But it is more than that: it is something to do with the way time is measured and the importance placed on it. "For I have known them all already, known them all: /Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, /  I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;"  laments T.S. Eliot's Mr Prufrock, and although his song may suggest a certain weariness with the routine of life, it is this very routine that gave my life in Zimbabwe a sense of harmony and rhythm, however hard the situation became. When I was pregnant with my first child, and regularly regaled with ...

I must admit I've never been one of those people who like horses.  You know the type who stroll about in jodhpurs even when they're not riding and laugh heartily at horsey jokes and talk copiously about stirrups and bridles and strawberry roans? Yes, that's them. I didn't even read Black Beauty or those Green Grass of Wyoming books as a child.  It was as if just by reading about horses I'd be at a disadvantage, not knowing what went where and what the importance was anyway.  Instead, I chose to be a little more than mildly derisive about horse lovers: that they got bow legs and that their faces grew long and their teeth longer, for everyone knows that horsey people begin to look like their equine friends.  (Look at Princess Anne, for example). It is therefore rather disconcerting to have a six year old daughter who has developed a real interest in horses.  I thought it might be one of those passing phases, like the ballet phase she so recently eme...

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those pictures of little kids all dressed merrily in white, sitting very still and smelling daisies or something equally inane as that?   Well, in case you’ve been taken in by the nicey-nicey, lovey-dovey impression these pictures create, let me tell you something – it doesn’t happen in real life.   It’s a set-up.   Yes, accept it and move away from that rail of white kiddies’ clothes that tempts you so much.   One, children don’t sit long enough to smell flowers; they squeeze them, they mutilate them, they scrunch them up.   They do not smell them.   Two, no child under twelve can wear white for more than five minutes without something being spilled down it.                   For mothers, too, white is an option that can be shelved for at least ten years.   I don’t know how exactly it all happens, but it is a foregone conclusion that by the...