How to get your child to read

Dog poop. There's your answer. Rocketboy, age almost-six, has been reading and re-reading Roddy Doyle's The Giggler Treatment all week. It is, in short, a few more than 100 pages about a man about to step on a pile of dog crap. It's funny, it's culturally broadening (you'll learn Irish slang for farting) and it's reminiscent of Rushdie's Satanic Verses in its expansion and compression of time in the narrative.

But the best, most important part is that it's about dog poop.

Did I mention that the first word Rocketboy ever wrote was poop? Coincidence? Don't be a fool.