A love affair we can afford

I have raised four children and am helping to raise seven grandchildren. I know the most important thing I could give these children and their children is not just love, which is a given, but the love of reading.

This gift, handed down from generation to generation, is more precious than any material asset. It is the legacy we can all afford, that we can all pass on. It was what my mother gave to me when she couldn't afford to give me anything else. By so doing, she set me on a path that would end up in publishing many magazines, editing some of them, and finally writing a book.

My father was an alcoholic, and given to violent mood swings when drunk. He could not hold onto a job but always found another one. Our mother was forced to work at night when he was at home and supposed to be in charge of us. Our father never hit us, and we loved him for that. But we didn't want to set off the anger that guilt and shame ignited in him when our mother came home after the last show at the cinema where she worked .

It was my job to keep my siblings so quiet that they did not disturb him. Books were my greatest asset. Huddled in one bed, for warmth, with a bedside light that could be switched off if we heard him coming up the stairs , I read until they finally dropped off. Only then could I turn to the book I wanted to read.

I was about eight at the time. But from the time I'd been a baby, the smell of books around my feet in the pram had been connected with joy and happiness.

Reading creates a sheaf of emotions, sometimes at the same time. The weight of a good book can make the heart beat faster in anticipation of pleasure to come. Books can raise a temperature, or make you shiver. They cause you to laugh out loud, cry, share, and sometimes seethe.

I dream of a South Africa where every child learns to read and is read to regularly before they are four, where books are freely available, where every child has a mobile device that serves as an e-reader, every teacher loves to teach , and the education department allows only 60% as a pass rate.

To me that doesn't seem undo-able at all.

• Raphaely is chairman of Associated Media Publishing. Get your free Nal'ibali reading-for-enjoyment supplement tomorrow in The Sowetan or visit www.nalibali.org and mobisite, www.nalibali.mobi for more storytelling tips and children's stories