No substitute for reading to kids

MY children find it amusing that I am reading to my five-month-old granddaughter, Tia. She has yet to recognise faces, what more to understand what is read to her. She might not even know the pictures in the book. At best she would be quiet, motionless sometimes or trying to grab the book I am reading from.

I learned from my great grandmother, a village midwife, who sang lullabies while delivering babies. The villagers liked her. She wasn’t just soothing the nerves of panicked young mothers but more importantly made the laborious and painful process of giving birth a memorable one.