ABSTRACT
So this child begins to listen to stories. They may, as I said earlier, be stories quite specifically about him, made up solely for him about him, by his own adult – because the adults in a book-child’s life have a background full of the rhythm and pace of hundreds of assimilated stories, and they use words easily, savouring them and savouring the construction of sentences and plots; they know books are about real people and are told by other real people, and they are not embarrassed within the warmth of their own family by their amateurishness or even conscious of it; and they encourage, and are intrigued by, the very personal identity and individual needs of each one of their children. For this family always has space and time.
