DIARY OF A MODERN DAD
Giving children books filled with facts – where’s the harm?
There’s no greater gift for a child than an encyclopedia. It does, however, have one small snag. Yes, your child will learn lots of facts. The trouble is you’ll be made to learn them, too. Because your child will spend all day, and possibly all night, repeating them to you.
Still, if you’re willing to take this risk, allow me to make a recommendation. Published by the creators of Encyclopaedia Britannica (and written by my old Telegraph colleague, Andrew Pettie), Listified! is crammed with childpleasing facts.
My son loves it, and constantly interrupts whatever I’m doing – reading, watching TV, sleeping – to inform me that a boy aged four ran a marathon, or that experts used to think the stegosaurus’s brain was in its bottom. One fact, though, troubled him.
“Dada,” he said. “It says some people have a fear of long words. It’s called this.” He pointed at the page.
The word was “Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia”.
“But that’s a long word,” he said. “So the people scared of long words can’t say what’s wrong with them.”