Why Reading Matters
“Knowledge is power.”-Frances Bacon
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”- Charles William Eliot
In childhood, I spent much time alone. Living in a small town with no city buses, more elderly than kids and an area not known for good things kept me away from most people. My social anxiety, although unknown at the time definitely also played a part but so did some of my home life I didn’t want friends to see. Books were a constant comfort to me. Showing me things about myself and the world while allowing my knowledge of things to grow. I often was called “space cadet” by my parents and was told I was always in my own little world. It is also told to me that I was able to hold writing tools correctly before anyone showed me how and my mother, who chose to homeschool us for a period, chose to teach us to read as early as possible. I remember many nights being annoyed by her rule of having to read a chapter of a book out loud to her before bed from a book that of course, had no pictures.
Though my mother’s tactics annoyed me at the time I grew to appreciate them. They gave me the ability to read beyond my grade level and comprehend what I was reading as well. Reading at this rate took me into advanced classes and contests for writing and reading I would have otherwise, missed out on. For someone who loves to learn none of this was lost on me and it helped me develop maybe faster than I should’ve my concepts of the world around me but more important, it gave me comfort and a home. I never felt more at home than in the words of whatever book I was currently reading. Seeing the vast landscapes and characters described in my mind took me to magical places I’d never thought could exist. Reading situations of children like myself brought the feeling of not being alone and not being the only person to experience certain illnesses at a young age. They also taught me the cruelties of the world and how awful humans can be to one another but also, how amazing we can be when we join together to change something. Books have been a central point of my life and this likely won’t stop. I’m already taking steps to make sure my children appreciate books because I believe in the power that books hold.
If you want to learn about a subject you can easily open up some sort of technology and do a quick search. That is the way now, however, you’ll get multiple sites and have to sift through information and sources and be shrewd enough to make sure you’re taking in correct information at the same time. While the internet has become an amazing resource books are invaluable in that they remain the same unless updated by new information that has come out on certain subjects. In schools Wikipedia is often looked down on as a source because of how easily the information can be changed whereas a book, can be backed up or contradicted by other books. Books can agree and be correct with little to no false information, although we are all human and errors can occasionally happen, you’re less likely to be fooled by a book than a faulty website.
There has also been a significant amount of book bans going on the past four years but I have yet to see many parents change the way they behave around their children, let their children interact with technology or even how they allow them to interact socially. So why book bans? PEN America as well as several publishers are suing a county in the state of Florida due to unfair and unjust book bans. Books are being taken off library shelves and school libraries are having empty shelves because of people wanting to control what their children read.
https://pen.org/issue/book-bans/
In Germany 1933, over 25,000 books were burned because they were written by American authors or Jewish authors. They wanted to destroy ideas that didn’t align with the Nazi beliefs and to show their violence if their rules were not followed.
“Where one burns books, one will soon burn people.” -Heinrich Heine
Reading is so important. How do we know that these things happened? We have books! Newspapers! Magazines even with accounts of world events that couldn’t have been recorded had it not been for someone who knew how to read and write. What good is it though if no one can read? The idea that women shouldn’t be allowed to read is not a distant one unfortunately and thankfully we know better now. Reading can save lives of people who think they are alone, people in desperate need for answers that doctors either aren’t or cannot give them. It brings people together and informs us of our past and how to move toward a better future. Reading matters because we would not be where we are without it. Reading is often more accessible than even computers and cellphones because of how awful it economy is and how much our government fails lower income families. Libraries matter because they can change lives and if someone wants a book taken out of there it’s because there’s something they don’t want you to know. If that’s the case you should do everything in your power to find out what that information is because it could prove to be invaluable. Reading matters and if you don’t believe me, you haven’t found the right book.
Much love
M
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