When I was growing up, reading for me was a natural part of each and every day. I devoured books.
It may have been that I took to reading better than others, but to me, it mattered not. I picked up books, and I mean pretty much any book I could and just went mad reading. Now, that is the point, I read pretty much anything, well, outside of newspapers or the silly magazines that are always discarded.
I loved how I was able to immerse myself in a story. I am able to put a face to a character, visualise an environment and take it all and create the world that is being described into a real place in my mind. When books are made into movies it saddens me. Clearly the prople who decide on making the movie just dont read the books, because the choices on venues, actors and what they make use of in the movie to tell the story just dont work.
But to get to my point, reading and children. I wish I could get my children to read more. I also wish that the availability of books for them to read was greater, at a much better price too. This is what hurts me. We all see it, all over the world, not just here in South Africa. Illiteracy is an issue. My problem with this is that if I look here in South Africa, libraries are a luxury. They are not as plentiful as they once were, they require registrations and some even wont allow certain age groups inside without an adult present. For a parent, buying books is a scary thing. The prices of books in my mind are just way over priced. In no way am I saying that the authors do not deserve to be paid for their efforts, to me they do a better job of opening your mind and imagination beyond what television or other electronic media can, however, I still think its an overpriced luxury.
In todays age, I read on a tablet, kindle or some type of electronic device. Yes, I realize that its not quite the same as the traditional paper books we grew up with, but I still go through at least a book a week. I am still able to read avidly. I was hoping that books not having the costs of printing and shipping and shop fees would be more affordable, much to my disappointment.
I wish we all, from the authors to the readers realized the importance that books have on us all. Not just from a learning aspect, but from the mind altering ability stories have on us. I hope we realize that sharing books would be such a powerful gift we could all give to each other.
And now I wish that through all the books I read, I could actually write a post in a coherent manner without ending up rambling on...:-)
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