Authors Electric

My eldest grandson is twelve today. I'm sure those of us with grandchildren all remember where we were when we heard they had been born. Those nail-biting days beforehand. That overwhelming joy to know that mother and baby were fine ... or more serious nail-biting if all is not as we'd hoped. But this grandson's arrival was a bit different for me. I was over half way through my Grown-up Gap Year. My daughter had told me she was pregnant three weeks before I set off - and a week before she returned to her job in Caracas. The original plan was for her to have the baby in Venezuela and I would go out to help when she went back to work - my travels would be completed by then. But Chavez was already in power and threatening to refuse exit visas to any child born in the country until he or she reached 18. (It was an attempt to stop the trade in beautiful brown babies to childless couples in America). And so she decided to return to the UK for the birth. (As things have turn...

This will be my last post on Authors Electric for a while. Life has got busy recently - busy in some very happy ways. My grandson Sam Zachary was born on November 9th - a little brother for Daisy, whom some of you may remember from my previous posts about her linguistic progress. This is Sam! First smile from Sam   So far, his literary accomplishments include gazing with deep interest at a book of black and white patterns. Good going for only three weeks old! He is also very keen on the horizontal grey and white stripes on the living room wall. (Daisy, at that age, was fascinated by a wardrobe.) I can't help wondering whether it's all the edge-detecting neurons in his visual cortex getting to work. Whatever it is, he gets engrossed, and he's also, like most babies, intrigued by faces. When I pick him up he frowns ever so slightly, as though he's thinking, Now, let's see, who are you? Ah, yes, Nana... I remember. Now, could you please ask Mummy or Daddy to ...

I had the pleasure of visiting my young granddaughter Daisy last weekend – and of seeing how much she has developed and changed since starting school in September. She can now write most of her letters, forming them with great care and precision, while reciting little verses to guide her. She can also put letters together to make simple words, and can spell out some unfamiliar words letter by letter and then read the whole word ‘F – O – G… fog!’ But what struck me most was the sheer joy of accomplishment on her face when she correctly read or spelled a word. And the way that she has started seeing words everywhere she goes – in shops, on signs – and her delight in recognising them and saying them out loud. Suddenly her familiar and well-thumbed books have become treasure troves, not just of pictures but of these wonderful new things called words – and wow, is she excited? Daisy is lucky – she is part of a family where books are loved and the house is full of them. She’s ...