Prolific writer, Abyna-Ansaa Adjei, has posited that most Ghanaian homes are bereft of books, which has contributed to the abysmal reading habits of Ghanaians.
According to her, the inability of adults to nurture the reading habits of their children by failing to provide mini-libraries for them is a prime cause of poor reading habits among Ghanaians.
Abyna challenged the adult population to endeavor to provide books to schools in their neighborhoods to aid in curtailing the poor reading habits of Ghanaians.
“I think the problem is a child does not have a book, a child cannot read a book. There are many bookless homes in Ghana. There many homes you won’t find a single book apart from the Bible, and if you are [not] lucky, you might not even find the Bible. So if we want children to read, what do we do to encourage them? If there is a school near your house, have you ever thought of going to EPP [bookshop] and buying 10 books for the children in kindergarten to read? If a thousand Ghanaians did that, do you know how many books will go into schools?” she questioned.
Addressing the media at the launch of her new book ‘Grandma Goody’s story: From Gold Coast to Ghana’, the prolific writer refuted claims that the cause of the poor reading habits of Ghanaians is due to the inception of technology.
“We are making the assumption that every single child is exposed to technology. You can call any of the children here. How many of them have an iPad? Even the child who does not know what the IPad is does not have a book in their homes. And that is the child we need to raise to become president. So if everybody has the chance to open a book, do you know what difference it will make?” she argued.
Abyna-Ansaa Adjei launched her twelfth book at the Flagstaff House Basic School on Thursday, December 14, 2017. Other books written by her include ‘Things every child of Ghana should know – J.B Danquah’, Ghana: The story so far, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II: King of Gold, and Grandma’s story: Ghana is 50.
