November 10, 1960

The books of Neil Gaiman (November 10, 1960) exemplify his advice on the importance of encouraging children to read.

"We have an obligation not to bore our readers, but to make them need to turn the pages. ...We have an obligation not to preach, not to lecture, not to force predigested morals and messages down our readers' throats like adult birds feeding their babies pre-masticated maggots; and we have an obligation never, ever, under any circumstances, to write anything for children to read that we would not want to read ourselves."

...."Comics have been decried as fostering illiteracy. It's tosh. It's snobbery and it's foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different....
He talks about whether paper books are going away:

"I do not believe that all books will or should migrate onto screens: as Douglas Adams once pointed out to me, over twenty years before the kindle turned up, a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Physical books are tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar operated, feel good in your hand: they are good at being books, and there will always be a place for them."
It is not surprising this brilliant writer has cats. And writes stories about them. But don't read this unless you like scary stuff. I don't.