I’ll be honest, I have never understood people who do not enjoy reading.
I played sports and I love spending time outdoors— but even so, to me, there is nothing like reading a book. Sure, movies are great, but they make you creatively lazy. A book forces you to paint your own picture, define the characters for yourself; books force you to think.
When I reflect on the books I’ve read in my lifetime, I realize they have taught me so many things— emotional intelligence, vocabulary, sentence structure, basic grammar, creativity, deductive reasoning, etc., and when the pandemic hit, many readers like me thought where I have read this plot before and immediately referenced author Dean Koontz’s 1981 novel “Heart of Darkness.”
It’s no secret I have a lifelong struggle with math, and there is no modesty here, believe me! I’m a complete dunce with numbers, but at one point I also struggled with learning to read. In first grade my mom had to really work with me until one night it finally clicked. After that pivotal moment, I not only began devouring books, but I also started writing them.
Sure, they were silly children’s stories, not real “books” per say, but I did self-illustrate and staple the pages or punch holes in them and tie them together with string— you know, high-quality stuff.
In books I found friends and stories that took me far from home.
My favorite author, L.M. Montgomery, who wrote “Anne of Green Gables,” taught me about “kindred spirits” and convinced me my imagination was not only powerful, but it also did not make me crazy. After all, Anne Shirley’s creativity could potentially rival mine. It also transported me to the world of fictional Avonlea located in very real Prince Edward Island, Canada. I think this is a key benefit of reading that is often overlooked. Not only does reading teach you lots of random trivia, it can also take your mind places the body may never go.
My favorite book series as a young child was author Gretchen Chandler Warner’s “Boxcar Children.” I can still recite the summary on the back of every book by heart: “One warm night four children stood outside of a bakery. No one knew them. No one knew where they had come from.” An adventure series, these books chronical the mystery solving lives of four orphaned children.
Additionally, some other titles or series I truly enjoyed as young reader were “Encyclopedia Brown,” “Trixie Beldon,” “Nancy Drew” and the “Hardy Boys,” “Sweet Valley High” series, Witch of Blackbird Pond,” “Island of the Blue Dolphins,” “Free the Conroy Seven,” “Jacob Have I Loved,” books by V.C. Andrews, Lois Duncan, R.L. Stine, “A Girl of the Limberlost,” “Bridge to Terabithia,” “The Hatchet,” “Number the Stars,” or anything by Alice Hoffman.
I’m sure once this goes to print, I’ll be inundated with the memories of countless other titles I also treasured as a kid. I love each of these books, and others I have read since, almost like family.
It makes me sad to see a generation of Americans not cultivating a love for reading or, in some cases, even lacking basic reading and comprehension skills. One can blame our public education system for these shortcomings; it is an easy scapegoat. But then I think of my mother selflessly devoting her evenings after dinner to sitting beside me on the couch, painfully listening to me try to read.
As a parent now myself, I realize what this cost my mother and it also showed me the responsibility parents have to ensure their child receives an education. Between school and parent, education should be a shared responsibility. If it weren’t for the efforts of my parents, I’d probably still be a dunce at reading too.