Ghana
Mrs Matilda Amissah-Arthur, the Second Lady on Friday appealed to Ghanaian writers to write more storybooks for children and readers in lower levels.
Her appeal was necessitated by concerns from pupils in Likpe-Mate in the Hohoe Municipality that most storybooks available to them have foreign settings and characters, which they could not relate to.
The pupils raised the concerns in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the sidelines of a reading festival organised by Biblionef Ghana, a non-profit organization.
The children said storybooks were not only hard to come by but also difficult to understand due to unfamiliar settings and plots.
They said consequently, they enjoyed reading their textbooks and not storybooks.
Rachel Avadu, Likpe-Mate Evangelical Presbyterian Junior High School (JHS) two pupil said though she read a storybook a few days ago, she could not remember the title of the book nor characters in the story because they were “strange.”
Florence Alagbo, a JHS one pupil of the same school, also said though she tried to read a few storybooks, she did not enjoy them because they were above her level.
Mrs Amissah-Arthur said “reading is not just fun but makes a man,” and urged writers in the country to write more child-friendly books with local settings and plots to attract and sustain the interest of reading in children.
She said though some people were writing for children, a lot more needs to be done to grow the reading population.
Mrs Amissah-Arthur noted that, selection of books was a major challenge to children and urged teachers and parents to help choose relevant books for the children.
Mrs Patricia Arhtur, Executive Director, Biblonef-Ghana, said the two-day event was to make the children see reading as a pleasurable activity, which they must do without anyone pushing them.
The reading festival, which was in the form of competition among 18 basic schools from the Hohoe Municipality and South Dayi District, was laced with fun games, drama and a quiz.
Winners would be given books and computers.
The competing schools and seven other educational institutions, with underprivileged children had benefited from donation of books from Biblionef since 2013.
