Media: Wanted: the best children's short-story writers: Do children enjoy the books their parents want them to read? Jenny Gilbert asks a mother and daughter

Rabbi Julia Neuberger, 44, is married to Dr Anthony Neuberger, an academic at the London Business School. They have two children, Matthew, 12, and Harriet, 14, and live in Clapham, south London. Harriet goes to James Allen's girls' school in Dulwich.

Harriet: I've no idea what age I started enjoying reading by myself. Seven maybe? My mother didn't use to read to me, but my dad did. I remember him reading the BFG twice by Roald Dahl and Eric the Viking by Terry Jones. I really loved that.

These days, if I have a lot of homework, I can't allow myself to read. Normally, I suppose I read up to three books a week. In holidays it might go up to five.

I mostly read what you'd call light adult books. Teenage fiction can be good, but can also be very annoying. I don't follow particular authors, I just read odd books and sometimes I think what I'm reading is a bit lowbrow. Last summer I read 1984 and after that everything has seemed a bit mundane - good stories but they don't mean anything.

Some of my friends have been reading feminist books and I thought I'd get The Female Eunuch. One of my friends said it was really interesting, though she could only read it in short chunks. She had to keep stopping to think about it. And she ended up believing that all men should wear skirts.

My parents have never stopped me reading anything, though they didn't approve of my reading all the Jilly Coopers. My mother said they were crap. So I said, 'You really ought to read one,' and she said she had started to and hadn't been able to find an ounce of interest in it and the writing wasn't any good.

Goodnight Mr Tom is my favourite book of all time, even though it's probably written for eight-year-olds. It's by Michelle Magorian and it's about a boy from a terrible home who was evacuated during the war to live with this gruff old man, and the last thing he wants is an evacuee. But they gradually do each other good and when his mother wants him home he doesn't want to go. I must have read it about 15 times and it still makes me cry at the end.

Julia Neuberger: When the children were small we both read to them a huge amount, and always a mixture of things, including poetry. And I suppose that carried on long after they were able to read for themselves. They've never needed much encouragement. If you're used to seeing your parents read, it's likely that you'll follow suit. I came from a bookish home myself - my parents never knew where to put all their books.

Of course, we didn't always enjoy their choices as much as they did. There was the awful endless phase of Spot the Dog. But there were also things we all enjoyed, such as John Verney's Friday's Tunnel, which is really for children of 11-up, but mine had it read to them around the age of six.

Harriet has always read much more than Matthew, which I think is probably a gender difference. His favourite reading is the Argos catalogue, though he's also completely hooked on First World War poetry - very keen on Wilfred Owen. But he plays computer games much more than Harriet.

I have on occasion burst out with 'Why are you reading such rubbish]' - I think when Harriet was on to Shirley Conran. But anything that they feel they're ready for, they ought to be able to read. It's hard to make that transition from children's to adult books and children can get lost to reading on the way.

I've introduced lots of books I loved as a child, with mixed success. Harriet has never liked school stories, which used to be my rubbish reading when I was younger. But she'll read my 'aeroplane reading' - Mary Wesley and Joanna Trollope - and she's read her way through endless Agatha Christies that we had in the house. I'm trying to encourage her into Ngaio Marsh, but she isn't into that yet.

My work as a rabbi has not impinged at all on my children's reading. There's a lot of Jewish history in the house, but it's up to them if they read it or not. Harriet's very struck with the film Schindler's List and I think she's going to read Schindler's Ark.

The hunt is on for the best new short stories of 1994, stories that no 6- to 9-year-old will want to put down. The reward? A pounds 2,000 prize and publication in the Independent for the winning entry. Two joint runners-up will receive pounds 500 each, and the top 10 entries to the competition will be printed in a specially produced anthology by Scholastic Children's Books, making these the top awards in this country for unpublished work for children. The invitation is open to professional writers, but we want especially to encourage new talent.

Many children know perfectly well how to read; the trouble is, they don't want to. They simply don't believe that they are missing out on something more satisfying and stimulating than television, Take That, virtual reality or computer games.

This is what our competition is about: finding writers who can hook this vital age group for life, with plots that twist and turn, characters who convince, and endings that surprise or even shock.

It is not easy. The writer must not condescend or patronise, but at the same time know what makes sense to a child. He or she must recall what it was to read at this age - but not be old-fashioned.

This year's judges include the award-winning writers Anne Fine and Terry Jones and other leading figures in the world of children's literature, as well as children from schools around the country. They will be looking for a shortlist of 20 funny and sad, magical and exciting stories to read again and again. Write us such a story.

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