Getting your child to read

This deserves its own section. There are many claims on a young person's time these days. There is also a bit of a gap between Harry Potter and adult novels. So, as a parent or guardian, you might have to be a bit sneaky to get them into good reading habits.

Give your child fun things to read. Get them a subscription for a computer games, cars, fashion, music or hobbies magazine – ask at your local newsagent for the popular titles.

Let them use the internet, although they might spend more time on MSN than a website with content that they actually read.

Leave newspapers lying around, especially the sports section.

Take them to the library. Buy them graphic novels (comic books) – beware of adult content in some of them. Try Judge Dredd, Hellboy, Batman or the Sandman series.

Teenagers lose interest in sports, mobile phones and computer games at least some of the time, so get them something to read for that long train journey. Many schools give up one English period per week for reading so find out what books they are checking out from the school library. Perhaps offer them an alternative if they are allowed to bring their own books in.

Lastly, here is a list of entertaining and not-too-demanding novelists. Beware of adult content in these -

Phillip Pullman
Darren Shan
Douglas Hill
Sue Townsend
Helen Fielding
Nick Hornby
S E Hinton
Terry Pratchett
J R R Tolkein
James Herbert
Stephen King
Dan Brown
Iain Banks
Irvine Welsh