Under pressure to write a real book

I wrote A Kite's Flight for my children, to show them my world as a child. One of my favourite things when I was a boy was to fly kites. When they were younger, I wanted my children to be interested in Africa and nurture a love for the continent and its scope for adventure. But I also wrote it for children who are growing up the same way I did. I want them to imagine and dream.

I grew up in an informal settlement in bleak times. One day, one of the boys who lived nearby asked me if I wanted to go to the library with him. I was six. That mobile library changed my life. I discovered books about people who live in other parts of the world going through the same things I was and who, most importantly, managed to escape their miserable existence. I loved books by James Baldwin. They were familiar to me.

Libraries are essential. I am proof that children can rise out of their circumstances. I was like many: same terrible schools, homework done by candlelight and barefoot until I was 15. I realised early that everything starts with reading - the boy who took me to the library went on to do well in life.

In order to improve literacy, we need to build a culture of reading. If we are interested in building this nation, then we need to make books cheaper and improve our libraries. The foundation of our nation has to be reading. But if we continue the way things are, we will never have a vibrant democracy in which informed people add to debates.

It's heartbreaking that education is still not of a high quality. We could learn lessons from Asia.

My children are my harshest critics.I have been told they'd like a real book now. I'm under pressure from them to come up with some sort of detective story.

I have just done That's Better - it's a book about the fear I used to have of the dark.

• Gumede is an associate professor at Wits University and author of, among others, the bestseller 'Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times'