ONE Sunday morning, the sun came up and - pop! - out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar... Remember him - the little green caterpillar with the enormous appetite? Chances are, if you've had anything to do with children in the last 30 years, that you have read that story not once but hundreds of times. He is the hero of one of the best selling children's books of all time. And now every child in Britain is to get a copy of it.

Under a new Government scheme, every child under the age of four is to get a bag of books. It's an appealing idea. Who can argue with a plan that introduces tiny children to the delights of Spot or the Bear Hunt or other stories so delightful that they become part of the fabric of the family? (Twenty three years after we bought our first copy, we still find ourselves quoting from the Ahlbergs' Burglar Bill. That's a nice book. I'll have that...)

The scheme comes after a review of how children learn to read and follows criticism that too many children leave school without basic skills. Children from homes with books do better. Children from homes without books are pretty well doomed from the start.

Putting books into bookless homes sounds great. But it's not as simple as that.

It's not the books themselves that matter - it's parents who will bother to read them to their toddlers. Without that, the scheme is sunk without trace. And the books will remain unread, forever stuffed behind a cushion, ignored and unexplored.

After all, you could give every home a piano - but it wouldn't turn out a generation of musicians.

So, sadly, however charming the idea, however delightful the concept, however well meaning the plan, it is misguided. People who would have bought the books anyway, will get them for free. People who weren't bothered about books before, are unlikely to change overnight.

It might light a spark in one or two homes, but in the vast majority of cases it is going to do nothing to instill a love of books - apart from as something to chew on - and will do little in increasing literacy.

Far better to spend the £27m on boosting public libraries. Or on story sessions. Or on more books for nurseries in deprived areas. Or on more teachers and extra lessons to make up that difference in schools.

Not as much fun, perhaps as book bags and boxes - but more likely to produce a generation of book-loving butterflies.

THE Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle was first published 35 years ago. It is just 224 words long, has been translated into more than 30 different languages and has sold 20 million copies. A few years ago, President Bush named it as his favourite book from childhood. He was 23 when it was published.