Surfing the internet for information on skin problem, specifically eczema treatments, which I occasionally suffer from whenever I handled harsh household chemicals without glove, I stumbled on a post I read years back.
I know I’d regret reading it – especially after I read the part about the highway we regularly travelled on – but that did not stop me from finishing the post.
But this also reminded me about a trip we made to a local bookstore recently.
As I was browsing the shelves close to where my children were, I overheard them talking about a particular book. At a glance, I noticed that it was a Malay ghost story – for children, complete with a hideous drawing of a “pontianak” on the cover.
Before they could skim through the other pictures in the book, I quickly took it away and explained that the cover was drawn by a lousy artist – luckily they did not understand the title or there would be more explanation to do!
I was looking for a few good stories in Malay but it was disappointing that not only are there very few books in Malay, the ones they prominently displayed were ghost stories – which in my opinion is not something kids should be reading.
*Picture : Tutong highway, Brunei
