We went to the library yesterday, to change my daughter's library books. We go every three weeks as a rule, although on this occasion it had only been a fortnight since our previous visit. Of no relevancy (but I'll elaborate anyway) the reason that we went yesterday instead of next week is that next Saturday we have a 'Soft Toy Pet Show' in our village hall. My daughter, who has by now funded at least one luxury executive yacht for the Ty Beanie Corporation, is keen to enter and since it's 'for a good cause' (misanthropic of me I know, but I really hate that phrase) that's exactly what she's going to do. There are various categories (Best Wild Animal, Best Loved, Biggest, Cutest) so I like to think that she's in with a chance - or rather, I don't like to think of the sulkfest afternoon which will ensue if she doesn't come first in at least one. There is a category for Ugliest Animal as well. My daughter used to have a hideous dayglo-pink chicken which felt like it had been made out of old parachutes, and which looked like the result of an ill-advised night of passion between the ugly duckling and a hindenberg. Alas, we threw the dratted thing away (yes, because it was too ugly) which is a shame as it now turns out, since if ever there was such a thing as a surefire winner then that abomination against both God and soft-toy manufacturers was it.

Anyway, the point is that we changed my daughter's library books yesterday. Her most recent literary fixation has been the Asterix books by Goscinny and Uderzo. For a little while I thought this rather strange, since a lot of the content (the character's names for starters) clearly goes over her tiny head; but then it suddenly struck me that my brother and I used to enjoy them when we were her age, so why should she be any different? Reading them with either the more discerning or the more nitpicky (you decide) eye of an adult, I am struck by how awful some of the puns are - and not just awful in a groaning sense, but awful in the sense that they are only really puns by definition. By which I mean that, yes, technically speaking they are plays on words, but there is no humour behind them - the sort of puns a computer might produce if you gave it a definition of the word but no examples to work from. Of course, the books were originally French so perhaps we shouldn't wonder at it. For that matter, it's a little bit galling (or do I mean 'gauling'? Ho ho h-- oh never mind) to find the French trying puns at all. A race whose finest (and as far as I can see, only) comedian is Jacques Tati is clearly unlikely to win many prizes at Montreux; the only French pun I know of is "vitesse est de l'essence" and that only works if you know that "speed is of the essence" is an English phrase, and that vitesse is French for speed. And that l'essence is French for petrol.

I'll take a pause here while you all split your sides...

All recovered? Good. Even more bizarre than the allegedly witty word play, the Asterix books also have gags in Latin where only the punchline is in English. And yet my daughter loves them - even when she doesn't know what the words mean, and when I have no idea how to even pronounce them, she still wants me to read them night after night. Maybe we're wrong, in England, in assuming them to be books for children (and the actually rather good line, "I'm not a misogynist, I'm not xenophobic, but I don't like that foreign woman" probably suggests they're not aimed at kids). After all, whereas we put things like "The Flintstones" on exclusively for children, in America they are placed as family/adult viewing - the laughter track if nothing else confirms this. "The Simpsons" is probably the first cartoon to get a slot over here which isn't blatantly for children, and even then it's a bit grey.

Of course, questions of suitability and criticism of content aside, I have another reason to be wary about my daughter's fixation with "one small village of indomitable gauls". Cast your minds back a few months and you may remember me talking about voicing the Mr Men. Here we have a book composed entirely of dialogue, with no narration whatsoever, and it's frankly pushing my limited repertoire to breaking point. Not only do I not know Latin, I also have no what a Roman accent sounds like. Mind you, neither does my daughter, so I suppose that gives me a certain licence. It's hard to pinpoint why one seizes on any particular accent, but if anybody feels capable of psycho-analysing me based on the following class structure please feel free: The legionaries are all Bill Kerr, the centurions are Windsor Davies, Julius Caesar is Kenneth Williams being pompous, and the senators and any other Romans are various degrees of Noel Coward. Ye-es...

However, despite this secret revelation that I don't actually like Asterix all that much, I am at least pleased that my littl'un likes books. More than that, I think she actually likes reading. I've spent the past month or two trying to persuade her to read the Harry Potter books, or at least have them read to her, but she has always poo-poo'd the suggestion with the rather depressing argument that she's seen the films, and that's enough! Yesterday at the library however she decided to do an abrupt about-face (women, tt!) and got out "The Prisoner of Azkaban". Our agreement at the moment is that she reads the first page of each chapter and I read the rest. Well, we've read two chapters this way so far, and we'll see how we fare with the other twenty over the next few weeks. If nothing else it gives me the chance to hone that Dame Maggie Smith impersonation I've been working on...

Oddly enough the subject of reading came up yesterday in a slightly different context. My nephew is 12, and apparently his English teacher recently told my sister-in-law that he should be reading more. Nothing unusual in that perhaps, but the teacher's suggestion was something by Thomas Hardy. By what stretch of the imagination he thinks that would be something to encourage reading I don't know. Maybe he's working on the 'thrown in at the deep end' theory. Although I've never actually read any of his books, I don't doubt that Thomas Hardy is a fine writer (if he's half as good with a typewriter as he was in those black & white comedy films, then I'm sure his books are outstanding) but I'm also pretty sure they make for difficult reading.

I don't know that there's anything particularly unusual in a 12 year old boy who doesn't read much. My brother was never much of a reader when he was that age - in fact he's now 35, and only yesterday he admitted to my wife that he's had the book of "Lonesome Dove" for about 10 years and is only on page 30. Actually, now I come to think about it I bought him that for a birthday present. Ungrateful swine! Conversely, I greatly enjoyed reading, from long before the age of 12 - I got the book of "The Wombles Go Round the World" when I was 7 and I'm fairly sure that I read it to myself, albeit it probably took some time.

I still enjoy reading now, although I've come to the conclusion that I'm not very good at it. I don't mean in a mechanical sense, but rather in the sense that I don't feel that I get everything out of a book that I should. People elucidate on why Shakespeare is so clever, and so multi-layered, and all that, but I can never see it unless it's pointed out to me (even then I can't help but think of the Emperor's clothes but that's probably just me). I'm also very weak on 'picturing' characters in a novel. There are exceptions, but in the main I would be very hard-pressed to write a piece on the characterisation and behaviour of a particular person - and in case you're wondering how I managed to get through two years of A-Level Lit' with these failings the answer is, to paraphrase Jerry in "The Good Life", sheer bloody waffling. (A practice which regular readers will know I have kept up ever since.)

I used to think, when hearing that "so & so isn't much of a reader" (and more often than not it's men rather than women) that it was a shame, but in considering the Thomas Hardy anecdote yesterday I'm not so sure anymore. After all, if my games teacher had said to my parents, "Andrew doesn't play much sport, he ought to go out and learn water-polo", I'm fairly sure that the suggestion would have been ignored. Why, then, should the reaction be different when it is reading rather than faffing about with a ball? And after all if school is intended to prepare its pupils for life beyond its walls, then it surely ought to recognise that some people, not necessarily by ability or anything other than simple temperament, are not going to be great readers?

This issue of reading in particular and school in general led us to the subject of school reports yesterday afternoon, when we were at my parents house (not a very exciting subject perhaps, but anything's better than talking about my pants). My daughter got hers recently, and it was generally very flattering - and it's far more in-depth than mine ever were at that age. Anyway, Mum ended up digging out not only some of my old ones (blush, blush) but also some of my Dad's.

Now my Dad was no slouch in the education department, having gone to Grammar School, then to University, and even being a Teacher (of Mathematics) for a while; but even his glowing school reports contained the occasional failing, which was at least a relief to the rest of us. Under the subject of PE he got a "must make more effort." Even more amusingly, the Art teacher had commented that he "must learn to locate his drawings properly" - not only do I not know what that even means (well, unless he'd been carving pictures on the desk instead of drawing them on paper, but that doesn't somehow sound like my Dad) but the teacher had rather ironically written this scathing comment in the wrong place on the report. But I have to be honest and say I'm fairly sure, since it was 'only' PE and Art, that my grandparents didn't lose many nights' sleep worrying over it.

I'm not making the claim, necessarily, that Maths & English are more important than PE and Art - they are probably more 'general-purpose' useful, yes, but just a basic grounding is normally sufficient for day-to-day life. In the case of English, as long as my nephew can read then surely it doesn't really matter whether or not he does; and as for Maths, adding up and all that are very useful skills, but comparatively few jobs actually require trigonometry or geometry. And let's not forget the lesson to be learned from that classic 1970's hit, "Algebra! Ha! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!" (Yes I know I've used that gag before, and no I don't have any shame.)

Or let me put it another way: my car is in for its MOT on Tuesday, and although I know absolutely nothing about cars (other than how to drive one, and even that's debatable) I do expect the mechanic to know everything. If I get there and he tells me that he can't do it after all, because he's three-quarters of the way through "Wuthering Heights" and just can't put it down, then I will not be a happy bunny.

Of course if that unlikely scenario should actually come to pass, you can come back to this column next week and read all about it...