I love books. I love the feel of them. I love the smell of them. I love the sound they make as I flip through the pages. I love the way they look marched across a shelf or piled on a table.
My love affair with books began early in my life. Reading has always been a passion with me. In fact, I cannot remember a time that I wasn't reading. Nancy Drew, Jane Eyre, Little Women, Tom Sawyer all found their way into my life and mind.
Nancy Drew gave way to Perry Mason and Agatha Christie, the grande dame of mystery. Books took me on trips to foreign lands. They allowed me to time-travel to Twain's 19th century Americana and Dickens' Victorian England. They dared me to think beyond the confines of my own experience; they challenged me to dream.
Books encourage me to test new ideas, to try on roles. In books, I am an explorer, a warrior, a diplomat, a leader.
When my children were born, I read to them, even when they were too young to understand the words. We read from children's classics and Bible stories. We read for the pleasure of hearing the sounds that words make when put together in lyrical form. We read for the sheer joy of it.
Now that I have grandchildren, I read to them. We are princesses. We are dragons. We are ballerinas. We are robots. It matters not so much what we read but that we read.
Books occupy every room in my home. In planning an addition to the house, I told my husband that I wanted built-in bookshelves.
So, for today, I am grateful for books and the worlds they open to each of us.
I can't imagine a world without books! They've transported me to so many new places, comforted me when I needed it and made my life so much richer.
ReplyDeleteI'm also delighted that you read to your children and grandchildren. A study I once saw said that the only common characteristic that successful people had was that their parents read to them when they were infants. Books are so very powerful.
Ah......books, my favorite things. I love cracking the book open and rubbing the pages with the palms of my hands, getting close and sniffing the smell of the paper - it's intoxicating. My theory is you can never go wrong with giving a gift of a book. Oh, by the way I finished Edens Garden. Thanks so much for such a lovely escape. I'm so loving your blog. You're a great friend and sister to Carla. Thanks for taking such good care of her.
ReplyDeleteWell said Jane. Reading out loud to my young nieces and nephews is such an adventure, for me and for them. They are so young that we rarely limit our reading to the text on the page: we explore the pictures and we ask questions.
ReplyDeleteI love watching the growing realization that there is a profound relationship between the letters on the page and the story unfolding. Later, they'll present me with a picture and a letter of their own, in an idiosyncratic, primordial script.
I remember my father loading a grocery bag full of library books, filling a two-liter bottle with Koolaide and taking me and my young brothers for a walk around the neighborhood. When we got to a home with a landscape Dad found inviting, we'd stop, read a story, have a cold drink and continue our constitutional.
I share your gratitude for books--and the memories they hold on and off the page.
"I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I've eaten; even so, they have made me." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
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