"Come over and talk to Granny," my son says, skyping me from Iceland.


"No." My grand-daughter's vowel is as rounded and golden as if she were rehearsing to take over should Her Majesty of England keel over in the middle of an address to the nation.


And why won't she come? Because she is busy reading. She has a pile of books in front of her and is earnestly going through them, one by one. The fact that the grand-daughter has just turned three is beside the point. Who could possibly object to her refusal to engage in conversation with someone in France? Especially Granny, who makes a living from writing books that – with any luck – even people over three will read. Reading is definitely the way forward.


Earlier this year, she and I sat together in an armchair while we looked at the same books I had once read to her father and uncles. Oh, the joy of re-discovering Where The Wild Things Are, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Horton Hears a Who or The Whale and the Snail. And how much I look forward to further pleasures as she grows older and wants different books. I do hope she doesn't develop a liking for Barbar the Elephant books. So teeth-gratingly boring. Back in the day (I love that ludicrous phrase, first encountered in a Lee Child novel, though it must have been around long before that!), I was eventually reduced to hiding them from my sons. Was this shameful or merely life-preserving?


It's lovely to think that there is a whole world of childrens' books out there, just waiting to be read aloud to a receptive grandchild. Especially Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak – who sadly died last week. No child should grow up without knowing the story off by heart, along with the hefty illustrations.