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I’m reading A Christmas Carol with my son.

He’s nine. I’m sure he’s not understanding half of it. Every now and then, when I read a bit that seems particularly difficult, I check with him to see if he’s got it; and usually he hasn’t, so I explain it to him.

And yet, he’s transfixed. He’s loving it. I’m reading half a chapter at a time - there are only five - and he’s with me all the way.

I think there are two reasons for this. Or, perhaps, three; but I’ll come to the third in a minute.

Reason number one: Scrooge. Was there ever a more disagreeable, yet more sympathetic, old sinner anywhere in all of fiction? From the start, we begin to know him even as we disapprove. And we laugh, too; my son’s first response, when I asked if he was enjoying it, was: “He’s funny.” Yet we understand him, and when - actually very quickly - he begins to feel again, we can believe in his reawakened feelings, and feel for him.

Reason number two: The language. Words can be like music, and you don’t always need to “understand” music to appreciate it. I’m convinced one of the reasons my boy isn’t getting bored and wandering off is that, quite simply, the words make a nice sound. To be honest, there are sentences I don’t entirely understand myself, but they’re great to read aloud.

So there you have it; in less than 150 words, my thoughts on why Dickens can be appreciated by a nine-year-old.

But what about reason three? Ah. Well. That one, I think, has less to do with Dickens, and more to do with me and my son.

You see, I’ve been building up to this for a couple of weeks: telling my boy that I want to read this book with him this year, and that I think he’s old enough for it. For both of us, I think, this particular story has become one of those special father-and-son events, imbued with a magic that neither of us wants to risk breaking. It’s attained something of the significance of a rite of passage; and so, it’s made us want to work at it. It may be difficult at times, but it’s worth the effort - both for what the story reveals, and for what it says about our relationship.

And, of course, it’s Christmas; and for many of us - me included - Christmas is a magical time; and the magic of this Christmas has become part of the magic of this shared story about a magical Christmas.

Time will tell - it’ll be interesting to see if he wants this story again next year - but I hope that when he’s grown, my son will remember the first time his dad read him A Christmas Carol, and will remember it with affection, as one of those many wonderful times when a story was more than just words.

Have a very merry Christmas, Awfully Big Readers, and - in the words of Tiny Tim - God bless us, every one!

John's website is at www.visitingauthor.com. His latest book is Jack Slater and the Whisper of Doom.

Did you have a Punning Dad when you were a kid? I did. Still do, as a matter of fact. No pun is too poor, no wordplay too weak, no flippancy too feeble; if there’s a double meaning to be found, my dad will dig it out.

Of course, when you’re little, you don’t mind. In fact, it’s rather nice to know you can rely on your father to say something silly several times a day. Small children relish it, and it gets you extra points with your friends - especially the friends with Serious Dads.

But when you get older... well, it’s just embarrassing, isn’t it? You don’t know why; it just is. Even when nobody else is around. And, of course, you don’t realise that every other boy your age is now embarrassed by his dad. All you know is that your dad keeps making jokes that were funny when you were four but aren’t funny now. So it was with me; and so my dad spent the best part of a decade suffering enormous amounts of teenage eye-rolling and dramatic sighing as an accompaniment to every pun. But did it stop him? Did it heck.

And to be fair, even now that I’m forty-five (can I really be forty-five? Twenty-seven seems like only a few minutes ago!) a lot of my dad’s puns meet with a vestigial eye-roll and a bit of a groan. But today - for reasons that will become clear - seems like an appropriate day to reappraise the role of a Punning Dad in the life of a developing writer; or, at least, in the life of this developing writer.

You see, without my Punning Dad I wouldn’t have become a writer of comic fiction for children. In fact, I wouldn’t have become a writer at all.

What you don’t appreciate, when you’re growing up with a Punning Dad, is that knowing almost anything you say might be punned upon gives you an awareness of language that other kids don’t have. You become alert to the meanings of words, and to their possible reinterpretation; you become conscious that what you mean to say might not be what is heard by the hearer or read by the reader. You develop a growing understanding of the subtleties of language; of its shades and tones and twists and tricks. You grow to recognise its strengths and limitations, and to love it for what it can do. And all this happens without anyone sitting you down in a classroom, or writing on a blackboard, or reading from a textbook. All this happens because you have a dad who loves language, and who passes on that love to you, with love, in a way that a four-year-old can understand - by being silly and making you laugh.

My dad taught me to love language in many other ways, too; but it’s the punning that sticks in my head. And now he’s a Punning Grandad (or, since he lives in France, a Punning Pépé); and I in my turn have become a Punning Dad; and my children - still a few years away, I hope, from the eye-rolling and sighing and “Daaa-ad!”s - are learning in their turn to play with this marvellous toy, the English language, and to love its shades and tones and twists and tricks.

So: happy 80th birthday, Dad, with all my love. Thanks for all the puns - even the really bad ones - and thanks for the much greater gift they held, wrapped up in secret inside them.

John’s website is at www.visitingauthor.com.

His latest book is Jack Slater and the Whisper of Doom (Young Corgi 2009; ISBN 978-0552558051).