By Sarah Foster

Sarah Foster is the Managing Director and Publisher at Walker Books Australia.

We are always being told that the secret to good health is a balanced diet and in our family our reading habits are suitably varied. Our reading defines us, as individuals and as a family.

My husband has cooking trysts with Nigella and Delia. I am not jealous as I get the benefit of his first love; the Italian offerings of the Silver Spoon. Yet at night it is with his Guardian Weekly that he invariably cuddles up and nods off to sleep.

Our 19 – year - old loves nothing so much as reading a good travel guide. She has occasional side trips to love stories set in exotic locations — Neville Shutes’ A Town like Alice on Han Suyin’s A Many Splendoured Thing.

The Catholic tastes of our 17 – year - old range from Ben Elton to Ionesco’s Theatre of The Absurd. Yet for his HSC ‘After the Bomb’ work he is raving over Mal Peet’s Life an Exploded Diagram. His bike — and a book — go everywhere with him.

For comfort, our cosy coach potato 12 – year - old returns regularly to Horrid Henry (six year’s after his first taste), sampled Lord of The Flies and now is Sherlock crazy thanks to Anthony Horowitz. To him, reading books and reading back stories on his Playstation game are one and the same... it is the story that counts — he is a reader of the future.

And our little seven – year - old has a sweet tooth. Unicorns and rainbows are happiness in her first chapter books, but a far cry from the observations of everyday life found in her favourite — Bob Graham’s picture book titles that give her more to chew on.

As for me, just as I occasionally yearn for a good bar of chocolate, so I need to re-visit Jane Austen a few times each year. I devour my monthly AWM magazine, Wartime, yet barely a night passes without me getting lost in a junior fiction or YA read.

“Anyone coming to the library?” leads to a grab for a scooter and a flurry of activity. You can never have too many books. They’re good for you. You need many different books to reflect the many different moods of life.  That’s what we think.

Reading features in our family snapshots; holiday car trips where we arrived but nobody could get out of the car until we got to the end of the chapter of an audio book. We discovered Victor’s Quest that way, and Dick King Smith. We sat there and sobbed at the death of Beth in Little Women while in the driveway of a motel reception. 

Crosswords provide food for thought at weekends; sitting around the breakfast table are the children and their sleepover ring-ins fighting over guessing words on the newspapers’ word search, “Does it still count if it is only 3 letters?”, asks the 7 – year - old wanting to be a part of it.

We were one of those families who bought an exercise bike which was destined for the annual council pickup until the teenagers worked out they could read and exercise on it.

Reading — it is as much a part of our family life as the evening meal and “Felix come and empty the dishwasher” “Mum I’m on my last chapter — can it wait five minutes” or at the weekend “I’m not getting out of bed until I have finished this book, I only have a few pages left”, are all as sympathetically understood as the need to delay something or go to the loo; it is a basic function in our lives.

Christmas presents, birthday present, buy a book. Awkward about meeting new friends in the playground? — “Ask them what their favourite book is”. Not good at barbecue small talk? “Ask them what their favourite book is”.

There is seldom anything as satisfying as telling a friend about a book you loved — or hated. I remember the fun we had one mothers and 17 – year - old daughters trip to Bali, in the evenings, having a swim then sitting down with our cocktails and all arguing over The Slap. I regularly walk with some girlfriends. Once we have got over the family chat, the conversation always reverts to books. It is like our own mobile book club with the added satisfaction afterwards of dropping round to each others’ houses to borrow!

How many times have I been flung a child’s bicycle or scooter — “Hold on Mum I have left my book inside”… We read in bed, on the sofa, in hammocks, in the bath, in the tree house, in home-made cubbies, as passengers in the car, on the train, on the beach. Where we go, so go our books.

The only sadness for me in reflecting on what books mean to our daily  family routine is the thought that so many people can’t enjoy this staple in our lives. This Christmas, in each of our children’s stocking was a reading gift for someone else — for the Indigenous Literacy Project (http://www.indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au/). Literacy classes in PNG from www.oxfamunwrapped.com.au. Send a girl to school — www.caregifts.org.au; a back – to - school literacy kit — www.thesmithfamily.com.au or an education for Indian and www.kinoe.org

Nepalese street

kids —

Let’s celebrate the year of reading by thinking of those for whom this is an aspiration, not a reality. And then let’s go for a walk and have a chat.

Tell me, what you are reading at the moment?

Sarah Foster is donating her signed books to The Indigenous Literacy Project, Oxfam, Caregifts, The Smith Family and Kids in Need of Educations