Hi Betty, deleted your mail by mistake after reading it, so I
can't remember all of what you wrote, but you raised some
interesting points.  I think children who grow up around books
are much more likely to enjoy reading- even more so if it's a
passtime valued by the adults around them.  However, there comes
a certain age after which- if they've never read or expressed
interest in reading- simply giving them a book isn't going to be
a very big deal in and of itself.  We had this  discussion at
work recently: a lot of the kids come from prison or hostels
where there aren't many books, and I said in a meeting that if a
student expresses interest in reading something we've got, we
shouldn't have any qualms about lending them the book; we may
never see it again, but if that student reads the book, then
we're making progress.  So about three months later, I noticed
that the number of books on our shelves had gone down
dramatically.  Talking to students, I learnt  that the other
literacy teacher had been giving books our willy nilly, but when
I asked them what they thought of the books, it became clear
that a) they hadn't read them, b) we'd not be seeing the books
again.  So obviously just giving out  books was possibly a waste
of resources.  However, recently I had a student who has always
resisted reading, saying that it doesn't interested him, the
stories are boring, etc.  So the other week I started reading
him a book about a teenager who gets involved in a gang, e tc.
He was so hooked that at the end of the session, he begged me to
let him borrow it.  He came in raving about it today, and said
"I hope you don't mind but I lent it to my cellmate."  So, in
this case, I don't actually mind if I never see that book again,
because I know  that it's being read by at least two boys, who -
up until now- have thought that reading was sissy, irrelevant,
etc.  This is a success story; don't get too many of them in my
line of work, so I wanted to share it.