ABSTRACT
In this chapter are some broad brush strokes across the canvas I have chosen. There are some thoughts, first, about literacy and about time, and how the two seem to be mixed up with each other in contradictory ways. (Since I have chosen to suggest in this book that literacy has something to do with “playing” with time, a few of these contradictions needed to be near its beginning.) From these we move on to look at how these contradictions might be connected with the experience of being a mother at home. For her, the present is dominated by other timetables-those of school (the regulator of literacy), of paid and unpaid work, and of everyday life. We consider how reading provides a means of transport out of the present time: excursions not only out of the home, but outside its timetables.
