A child who develops a love of reading wins a prize that will last and last until the end of life. Learning to read confers the magic of an extraordinary new power. Alberto Manguel, in his fascinating book A History of Reading, remembers the exact moment when he first knew he could read. He was four, riding in a car, and he spelled out a billboard slogan for himself. “It was like acquiring an entirely new sense,” he tells us. “Since I could turn bare lines into living reality, I was all-powerful.”
At the most practical level a love
