THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 11, 1995 TAG: 9505110427
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Used to be, long ago in Georgia, a hexagon-shaped pinwheel with an explosive charge on each of its six sides, would, when nailed to a tree and lit, whiz around in a most demonic way expelling fire in all directions.
Just so, GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich spews ideas, good, bad, indifferent. It keeps his foes - and the press - chasing around to keep up. One feels an impulse, at times, to jump behind a tree.
A good idea, which sank quickly from sight on the national scene, was a program awarding a child a dollar or so for every book read.
With Gingrich it started in 1990 when he challenged the West Georgia College faculty to lure children into reading. Schools hereabouts have sponsored earn-to-learn inducements on their own in recent years, often with funds supplied by civic clubs and firms.
Indeed, I fomented such scams through the mid-1950s as Gin's three boys reached the first grade.
Even before that, to give them the feel and heft of books, she put them in their hands soon after they came kicking into the world.
Both of us read to them through their early childhoods. Arriving home one evening, I found her reading loudly to one in the womb.
Some purists deplore using bucks to inspire the young to try books. It's so mercenary, they hold.
Nonsense! The idea is to use every possible push to ease them into reading for pleasure.
It works, that's what counts.
Until they were 10, I plied them with bribes to hook them on books.
Just read the first four chapters of ``Treasure Island'' and the child could have a half dollar.
Or he could see ``Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier'' on TV if he would promise to read the two opening chapters of ``Tom Sawyer.'' (A reader gets more quickly into Mark Twain's story, hence the offer for fewer chapters.)
Thus one could dangle seductive television bait to entice a child into the more nourishing book.
They were fed books that had enlivened my childhood. Pausing at their door, I'd hear one laughing at Thurber's ``My Life and Hard Times,'' which signaled that he would be immersed in it well past curfew. So what?
Never interrupt anybody reading, is my rule. Once the habit of reading takes hold, it lasts.
On a recent weekend, when all three and their families were in town, I put in their way a book they should know. Didn't say a word, just left it on the giant, long, low-slung table by the sofa.
And waited.
Before long, one brother sprawled, book in hand, while colliding galaxies resounded around him. Until the book was done, he didn't look up or put it down.
Then he handed it to a brother, advising him, off-hand, to try it. Still later that brother was giving it to the third one.
All, without a bribe. by CNB