Is my title one of those aggravating rhetorical questions? I mean, we all know what a book is, really—we have dealt with them our entire lives.
Yes, it used to mean a lot of pages with words someone wrote, held together by some form of binding material with a back and a front. Now, a book can be on your phone or a computer.
Who needs to go to a bookstore or a library? I mean, why even read a book when you can read a summary and save yourself all that time? Anyway, only nerdy or old people read books.
We have computers, televisions and apps. Books are so old school, right? Just give me one example of how books have made the world better. Why should we read books unless we are in school and do so under duress?
Nope, really, no. I disagree. Our lives, our world and almost anything you can imagine are better, smarter and happier because of books. They’ve even helped us eat better and be healthier.
Grab my hand, come with me, and you will enter a world of imagination where we can learn about many nations and study constellations and mathematical equations.
Come with me, and we will travel through all of history, enjoy a thrilling mystery and learn of the secrets of chemistry and of times of joy and misery. You will find ways to dance, live romance, and learn of chance and how reindeer dance as you feel your mind expand.
You will learn about ways to pray, find places to stay, and go on a mental getaway. As you laugh, and you swoon, and take rockets to the moon, all barriers fade away.
When you open a book, you will find fresh new worlds to see, new doors to walk through and places you have never been before. Still, there is so much more: how to heal, how to draw, and how you can be so very much more.
Yet, all you have to do—yes, it’s really true—is open the metal bubbling brook, sit down, and read a book.
I have always believed that, even if I had all the money in the world but had never read a book, I would be poor. To me, books have always been my friends, something I could depend on to educate me, soothe me, inspire me, and help me understand and imagine.
There was never any doubt that I would write. Reading and writing—they’re like breathing to me, my life’s rhythm.
Like millions of girls, I read “The Diary of a Young Girl,” an autobiography by a Jewish German girl named Anne Frank, which opened my mind to prejudice, hatred, history, courage and empathy.
The Russian Revolution took on vibrancy and passion after reading one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read: “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles.
This book led me to discover more books written about this period and created a whole new area of study, just as “The Diary of a Young Girl” led me to become a passionate reader about World War II.
My classroom experience in Western civilization was mind-blowing, and I have read every book I can on this subject.
Like so many of you, I discovered books can be like breadcrumbs that send you off to new fields of study and interests.
Stories have enchanted people since the beginning of time, and we’ve come to honor those who held and passed on that verbal history. People would gather in circles, held captive by the telling of words that transformed.
From generation to generation, these stories were carried like a trust. The storyteller, keeper of history, was revered. To be chosen as the keeper of these verbal treasures was a great honor. The Bible is filled with the words of many such keepers.
Cave dwellers tried to leave their legacy of words through the crude drawings on their cave walls. One of the world’s most revered antiquities is the Rosetta Stone.
Just think of all that has happened since Moses brought down the sacred tablets, the Ten Commandments. It has been a long and winding road, this path from speech—which then became drawings, etchings, carvings, and handwriting—to the first printed book.
The Gutenberg Bible was the earliest major book published in 1455. Published in 868, the “Diamond Sutra,” a Chinese translation of a Buddhist text, is now preserved in the British Library.
Words have great power. When shared, they grow and can live on forever. Words become the ties that bind history, the past, present and future. Were it not for these transfers of thought, how would we know about ancient civilizations and the possibilities of the future?
Or, let’s face it, how would we know how to cook if a lady named Betty Crocker hadn’t written a cookbook, or how would we care for our children before Dr. Spock’s book?
Imagine how the world changed when suddenly books were available to the masses, not just the wealthy.
Books inspired many revolutions, which could explain why governing groups banned and even burned books during times of political unrest. Book banning is a form of brain control, and it is dangerous.
In 1915, the Turks began these methods as a way of eradicating the Armenian people. This method caught the attention of the Germans, and they ran with it. It helped lead the way to what almost became oblivion.
America has its own history of book banning, which is unfortunately still ongoing. Authors of banned books have been ostracized, exiled or threatened with death. These actions show how much power some feel books and ideas can have on the reader.
The worst act of book censorship happened during the Qin Dynasty, sometime between 259 and 210 B.C. To control how his reign’s history was written, Emperor Qin Shi Huang buried 460 Confucian scholars alive.
In 1980, Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” was banned from London schools because its characters were from the middle class. I think this one, at least, is funny.
In 1954, Mickey Mouse comics were banned in East Berlin for being “anti-Red rebel.” The Alabama State Textbook Committee banned “The Diary of a Young Girl” for being too much of a downer in 1987. To me, book banning bad, book reading good.
If you are curious about this subject, go to your computer and look for current banned books. Amazon has a large list, and I think some may shock you.
Books the enemy. Books the cure. Books on everything, and may they be written evermore. Books are accessible. You can go to the library, a bookstore, a yard sale or borrow from a neighbor.
You can join a book club or read at night to unwind from the day. A book is a magic carpet that will take you anywhere you desire to go.
What is a book? It is everything, really. I cannot think of anything you cannot find a book on. You can put it aside, and it will wait for you to return. A book is the world at your fingertips. So, this summer, go somewhere. Just grab a book and travel.
Let us all consider these wise words by the eminent Dr. Seuss: “Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.”
