Books that teach nothing – can such a beast exist? Most Southasian minds, conditioned to see books as carriers of knowledge to be treated with solemnity and reverence, would boggle at the thought. But to see books merely as repositories of information and instruments of edification is to do them a grave injustice. Books are far more than that: they are a source of joy and excitement, they allow one to dream, to play and to cross over to other worlds. They are, to put it simply, fun. Try telling that to teachers or parents who regularly moan that television and computers have killed the reading habit. To an extent, this is true. But instead of complaining, we should perhaps ask ourselves why children see reading as a chore imposed upon them by teachers and ambitious parents.
Why is it that so many children in our region, certainly in India, tend to equate reading with studying? The clue lies in the wild success of three Western series of books – Harry Potter, Twilight and the wacky, yucky Goosebumps. The answer is simple: these books are fun to read, they do not try to push moral lessons or general knowledge down readers' throats but just tell good yarns with dollops of humour and plenty of drama. In contrast, children's books in India have always tended to be didactic, seeming to constantly feel the need to inform or 'improve' the child. Walk into the children's section of any bookstore, and you will find that it is filled with three kinds of books. The first set consists of those that seek to inform – encyclopaedias, quiz books, non-fiction books on different subjects. The latter are sometimes written with a light hand, but more often than not in a sombre and undisguised attempt to edify the hapless child, already beleaguered by an information-heavy education system.