“Make it a rule that you never give a child a book that you wouldn’t read yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw said it as if it were obvious. It’s not obvious at all. Most adults treat children’s reading as a separate, smaller category. They choose books based on age labels and illustrations on the covers. They pass on anything that appears to be educational or safe. Shaw says the approach is wrong. The reason he gives is devastating in its simplicity.
If you wouldn’t read it, why should they?
What does this mean
The quote has a command at its center. Make it a rule. Shaw is not offering a subtle suggestion. It prescribes a personal policy firm enough to overcome the comfort, habit and temptation to treat children as an easier audience.
The word rule does quiet but significant work here. Rules eliminate the need for repeated deliberation. You don’t repeat the rule every time a situation arises. Shaw wants this standard applied consistently, without exception.
The condition he sets, a book you wouldn’t read yourself, is a real challenge. It forces an adult to sit honestly with his own taste. Not what they think they should read. Not what seems appropriate. What would they actually choose? That honesty is the whole test.
Read also | Quote of the Day by Eleanor Roosevelt: “Many people will go in and out…”
A reprimand is also a consequence. Giving a child a boring, empty or condescending book is not neutral. He shapes what he believes reading is. A child who is given boring books learns that reading is a duty. A child who actually receives good books learns that reading is a joy. Shaw understood that the stakes of early reading were enormous.
Where does it come from?
George Bernard Shaw was one of the brightest minds and most prolific writers of the twentieth century. He wrote more than sixty plays, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, and remained intellectually wild into his old age. He had no patience for sentimentality or performance.
His views on education were similarly uncompromising. He believed that children deserved to be engaged, not directed. He distrusted systems that spoke to young people or assumed that their intellectual needs were simpler than those of adults. This quote is consistent with this worldview. He shows the same respect for children that he believes all readers deserve.
Read also | Albert Einstein quotes why leaders must never stop questioning
Shaw himself was a voracious, unruly and deeply personal reader. He didn’t read to learn. He read because he really cared about books. This personal standard is exactly what adults are asking to make decisions about children.
Another perspective
Shaw also noted, “We don’t stop playing because we get old; we get old because we stop playing.”
This common thought reveals something important. Shaw believed that being alive, intellectual, imaginative, creative is a practice that must be deliberately maintained. Reading together from a shared quality standard is one form of this practice. An adult who chooses a book that he would like does not only serve the child. They also keep something vital within them.
How to apply it
The next time you pick out a book for a child, read the first chapter yourself before handing it over. Ask if you would like to continue reading it. If the answer is no, keep looking.
Make a shared reading list with the children in your life. Not books for them and books for you, books for both. Overlap is available for each age level. Its search is worth the effort.
Read also | Oscar Pistorius Quote of the Day: “If you put in the hard work…”
Return to the books you loved as a child. Many hold on. Some hold up better than adult books you’ve read recently. This discovery alone will change the way you think about what children deserve from their reading lives.
Finally, resist the reflex to allocate rather than offer. Shaw’s rule is built on invitation, not obligation. The goal is a child who wants to return to books, not one who associates them with tasks.
Related reading
The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease
Trelease builds an evidence-based case for what Shaw instinctively argued. Reading aloud from good books, books that adults like, creates readers for life.
A Reader About Reading by Alberto Manguel
Manguel explores what it means to read throughout life. His argument for reading as a fundamental human act reflects Shaw’s refusal to see it as a mere educational tool.
Charlotte’s Web by EB White
This is a test case for Shaw’s rule. Bíla did not write to the children. He wrote with full emotional power and trusted young readers to meet him there. Most adults who revisit it are moved again.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
This is another book that blurs the line between adult wit and child wonder. Juster wanted to entertain himself as much as his audience. Shaw would totally approve.
