Author smears local children's books as 'command-like prose'

JAKARTA (JP): Dutch children's book author Annie Keuper- Makkink has criticized the content of first-grade elementary school books here as being too strict with command-like prose without arousing children's desire to read.

"Don't just fill their heads with facts," she told The Jakarta Post, adding that memorizing information would not encourage children to read.

Speaking at a workshop at the 1997 Indonesian International Book Fair, Annie said books must be able to enrich children's lives and allow them to learn things which they could not otherwise learn by themselves.

Children's books must be filled with interesting stories about real things that matter in their lives, she said.

She underlined that these were books for young children who were just beginning to learn to read and thus the books would have to be able to further wet their appetite for reading.

As an example, she pointed to several first-grade textbooks which contained very dry information about national heroes. She maintained that their should be more story-like descriptions of these heroes including attractive pictures.

Annie has written a dozen children's books in her native Dutch language. She has also been a teacher and taught in Klaten, Central Java, from 1980 to 1983.

Speaking on how to encourage reading habits among the very young, Annie said children should be introduced to a reading- friendly environment early on.

She said children could be prepared by frequently introducing various sounds commonly found in the vocabulary, adding that reading classes in elementary schools should also involve singing, as it would accustom children to stories and reading.

"I also hope Indonesian parents read stories to their children before they sleep or in their spare time," she said.

During the opening of the 17th book fair on Saturday, Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro lamented the nation's poor reading habits despite the decline in illiteracy.

He said people had yet to truly understand the meaning of reading a book. (09)