Books are good for babies. Adults often say, “They are too young; they don’t understand anything.” Yet, babies show a deep curiosity about books long before they can speak: they smell them, bite them, leaf through them, touch the pictures, listen attentively to the first stories. Beyond bodily care, babies also need nourishment for their imagination.

Through pictures and storytelling, the pathway to language, thought, and the world of words begins to open. Against the trend that views books merely as early educational textbooks, Marie Bonnafe defends the joy of “reading for nothing”: reading freely with no goal or purpose, born simply from the pleasure of the story itself.

Because there, in those first shared moments around a book, something much more than a habit is born. A deep cultural relationship with the written word is created.

More information

Author: Marie Bonnafe

Translation: Grigoris Abatzoglou, Maria Bouris, Christina Chatzidimitriou

Publisher: Patakis

Pages: 256

Cover type: Softcover

Dimensions: 14 x 21 cm