Once upon a time there was a boy who couldn't read at all. What's more, he didn't want to learn to read either. He was already 7 years old and was supposed to start school. Yes, they accepted him into school, even though he didn't know letters or numbers. But the boy wasn't upset. What's the big deal about school? Besides, now he had more time to play with his mates and with his favourite toys.
On 1 September, many of his friends went to school, so there was no one to play with in the yard. Little children were playing in the sandpit, but playing with small kids wasn't interesting to him at all. But at home his toys were waiting for him. He had a huge collection of them, so the boy wasn't bored at all.
His parents tried to instil a love of books in their child. They bought lots of colourful books from the shop: fairy tales like "The Gingerbread Man", "The Turnip", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". They hoped that the colourful pictures would interest their son. But it was all in vain. He was stubborn and refused to read.
Come on, let me read you the fairy tale "The Gingerbread Man" or the fairy tale "The Turnip".
His mum said one evening when the boy was about to go to bed.
Well, any one will do.
He replied with great reluctance.
Mum began to read the fairy tale, but noticed that her son wasn't listening at all.
Don't you find it interesting at all?
Not at all.
The boy answered lazily and turned to face the wall, and then fell asleep altogether.
One day the whole family was supposed to go and visit grandmother for the holidays, who lived far away. To do this, they needed to travel by train. The boy took a long time packing because he needed to take as many toys as possible with him. Of course, he couldn't pack all his toys, but he stuffed the suitcase to bursting.
And so the parents and son arrived at the station.
Look. There's the departure board that shows which platform our train will arrive at.
Dad said.
Nothing interesting about that.
The boy replied.
The train arrived at the first platform. The parents showed their tickets to the conductor and went onto the train to their seats.
Are these definitely our seats?
The boy asked.
Of course. Look, they're written on the ticket.
His father answered.
The boy took the tickets and began to study them, but since he didn't know either letters or numbers, he soon got bored with it. After 2 hours they had arrived. Grandmother was there to meet them.
They all got into the car and set off to the dacha. It was Indian summer outside. Despite it being autumn, the air temperature was high, it was very warm and pleasant. The vegetables and fruit in the garden were just ripening.
Why don't you want to learn to read?
Grandmother asked the boy one day.
What do I need it for?
It's very important. Imagine you went into a shop and wanted to buy an ice cream, but you couldn't read the name.
I'll just point at what I like.
Don't you want to read books? Look at the interesting fairy tales your parents bought you. There's "The Gingerbread Man" and "The Turnip". They're my favourite fairy tales.
No, I can't be bothered.
The boy muttered and ran off to play with his toys.
The parents' holiday came to an end, and the whole family set off to the station to go home. There the boy got distracted by a toy vending machine and fell behind his parents. And so he found himself alone in the middle of a huge station and had no idea where his parents were.
But then he remembered that his father had shown him the departure board where it said which train he needed. He ran up to the black board, but couldn't understand anything on it at all, although he could see how children with their parents, walking towards the platform, looked carefully at the board and tickets and immediately went where they needed to go.
The boy looked around in confusion and couldn't work out what to do. His confusion only grew, along with fear and bewilderment at everything happening around him. The boy suddenly realised how wrong he had been when he was stubborn and didn't want to learn to read or write. The boy sat down and cried bitterly.
Then a station worker came up to him and asked what was wrong. Learning that the boy was lost and very upset, he took him to the station manager, who announced over the loudspeaker that the boy was looking for his parents. Very soon his breathless parents, who had been searching for him all over the station, were standing in the office.
The son rushed to embrace them. He asked their forgiveness for being so foolish. They got on the train and all the way home the boy kept asking his parents to read him fairy tales and teach him to read. After all, reading is an important life skill that you simply cannot do without.
