Who does not aspire to have a house full of good and well-loved books? It is obvious that many people do not aspire to the dusty life of a bibliophile, but many of us still do. The power of words is mysterious but compelling. People who can communicate can have a richer experience of reality with more words to express the gradations of being surrounding them. Articulate individuals can experience new ideas and persuade other people.
Additionally, reading and remembering are simply fun. Someone well-read has an anecdote or pithy saying, a line of poetry for every occasion. A life with many words can be a beautiful one. But how does one cultivate such a life in one’s children? The first step, as is usually the case, is convincingly and sincerely trying to live such a life for oneself.
The current culture presents a crushing sense of inevitability: television and telephones are everywhere; your child must be plugged in. You will be pulled in, time and again, to the online payment portal, one more text message, hours of scrolling—ironically, writing about the joys of reading books on a laptop in moments snatched here and there throughout the busy day. Electronics are beckoning always, and their use is antithetical to the art of reading. Oh, sure, you can read on your smartphone, or tablet, or Kindle. It could happen and will do in a pinch, but for most people, life wears down our resolve such that the electronics will veer toward the algorithmic lull of passive entertainment almost without fail.
How, in such an environment, can one offer anything else than passive consumption? Reading and being read to, those igniters of the imagination, do not stand a chance. Yet, the first step is to begin.
That is all. A task begun invites further action. Moving beyond the stage of fretting and rueing, action moves us toward an ideal. Picking up a book and reading a line, a sentence, or a page is a beginning.
There is a correlation between the number of books in the home and the literacy of the children. Studies show, the world over, adults who had books in their home growing up consistently tend to have higher literacy, numeracy, and communication skills. Interestingly, study participants who had books in their home as teenagers yet never graduated from higher education surpassed university graduates who had few books in the home in measures of literacy.
Anyone who owns books knows full well that all the books collecting dust are rarely read. With a glut of paper and print, we find ourselves surrounded by text we never take the time to read. And yet, even this aspiration may serve some purpose. Depositing the books in our homes is first step to reading, an acknowledgement that there is a world of reading out there, vast and varied as the real world, text tracing every surface of material and thought we can collectively know and imagine.
Getting books in the house is the first step. Then comes reading. There is no need to start with difficult and complex works; simple works make a fine beginning. Poetry can be a short and sweet way to bring more reading into the rhythms of the day. Sooner than one might think, enjoying longer works of fiction is well within reach.
Though it seems to dodge the question, truly the way to become a reading family is simply to begin. Over months, stacks of materials read accumulate, and suddenly long lists of classics are no longer intimidating but intimate family friends and shared memories.
One of the great joys of meeting worthy authors is finding an introduction to all their friends, the books that influenced them and those they influenced. Never be concerned that you will “use up” the list of great books to read. Having discovered great books, more will follow, all from simply having read the first line of a great book on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
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