一代又一代的中产阶级父母过去常常把自己最喜欢的书强加给孩子。但在八十年代末的某个时候,它开始衰落——不是因为孩子们对可爱的动物失去了兴趣,而是因为大部分内容都是通过有用的、安抚性的视频提供的。
(Successive generations of middle-class parents used to foist their own favourite books on their children. But some time in the late Eighties it began to wane - not because children had lost interest in adorable animals but because most of it was available on useful, pacifying video.)