When do we like to read?
What about the chance to sit absorbed, lost in the possibilities? The ability to lose ourselves in a story, identify with characters sketched, the places and situations revealed as pages turn. Exploring a work that somehow takes us over, the world seeming so much bigger than the one we inhabit?
Love of reading lasts a lifetime. And often begins early. As a child maybe a series seemed to speak to you personally. Add a summer reading list from school? Did a children’s novel series have a chance to catch on with classmates?
Progressing at school, we chase the clock: Assignments at home, library at closing, school projects, study guides, class tests, exam results. At work we marshal facts and harness the clock: Reading makes us effective, ready on the spot, jumping in to explain, sharing our points-of-view.
Turning pages
Stuck in a check-out line we may glance at the headlines. Waiting for news on the commute we’ll get blasted by ads. We validate ourselves absorbing streams of documents to handle work, school, the running of our personal lives, for signups, pledges, being busy with busy work. What about peace-of-mind and sanity?
Should we lose a child’s curiosity, our room for choices, our connection with the realms of fantasy and fiction, imagination and creativity? Reminds us how we like to read? Can we count the ways?
14 Things You Can Do With Your Reader
