I have always fantasized about having my own library, and my parents humored me in this. There were already a significant number of books in their home by the time I arrived in it (“and that has made all the difference”)—many of which now live with me. And they gave me books whenever I asked for them. Got me a library card wherever we lived.
I can’t imagine living without my personal library, but I know I was (and am) lucky. Lucky to be born into those circumstances with parents who valued books and reading. Lucky that I can usually afford to buy the books I want. Lucky that I can read them and that I wanted to read from an early age. I’ve long believed at a gut level that all that reading changed me. (Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times, points out we have the data that proves reading fiction makes kids more intelligent. I absolutely believe it.)
Author Neil Gaiman does too. In a lecture he gave in London last fall for the Reading Agency, Gaiman says reading fiction (by definition, reading for pleasure) is vital for the survival of our society. I mean, when the prison industry in the United States can predict how many cells they’ll need on hand in fifteen years based on what percentage of today’s ten- and eleven-year-olds can’t read, I think we should all be a little worried. Can’t read? Go straight to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.*
Why is that? We have some data on that too.
Lisa Cron, author of Wired for Story, says fiction is how we make sense of the world.
By letting us vicariously experience difficult situations and problems we haven’t actually lived through, story bestows upon us, risk free, a treasure trove of useful intel, just in case. And so back in the Stone Age, even though those shiny red berries looked delicious, we remembered the story of the Neanderthal next door who gobbled ’em down and promptly keeled over, and made do with a couple of stale old beetles instead.
We dig those stories, we like a little gossip, a little tale of the Red Berries of Woe—because we learn from them. We have an “intense interest in other people’s secret thoughts and motivations,” says Stanford English associate professor Blakey Vermeule, author of Why Do We Care About Literary Characters?. She says fiction “pays us back by giving us valuable social information. ‘Information that would be too costly, dangerous, and difficult to extract from the world on our own.’ Fiction allows us a rare insight into the minds and hearts of its characters, its people. An insight that we often wish for in real life.”
Those kids going to prison fifteen years from now aren’t getting this crucial information now, today, when they need it. (And think about it: if you can’t read, it’s likely you can’t write either.) Many of them come from unlucky lives. Poverty, abuse, dangerous neighborhoods—there’s a lot of distractions for kids like these. Television and the vast array of electronic distractions don’t help. Why read if you don’t have to, if no one encourages you to?
Because all this being in other folks’ heads, knowing what they think and how they react to good news or bad news is vital for young people growing up. Gaiman says,
Fiction … build[s] empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You’re being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed.
Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.
We live in changing times. Bookstores are closing. Worse, libraries are closing. Gaiman, Bruni, and others are sounding an alarm, and as a society, we should heed it. This isn’t about changing technology; books, in some iteration or another, will survive. (If you don’t believe me, read Hamlet’s BlackBerry.) And we lucky ones will read them.
But what about the unlucky kids? We need to make sure they know how to read, learn to love books, and have access to them. Children who have books when they’re little … who have parents who read to them …who see their parents read for their own pleasure … who are taken to story hour at the library … these kids will develop a reading habit over time.
Sometimes you have to be patient. Sometimes you have to search diligently for that One Magic Book. Sometimes you have to be creative: comic books and graphic novels are just as effective, particularly for kids who might be intimidated by thick books or faster readers.
If you’re one of the lucky ones, you can support early childhood literacy programs in your community. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library—which mails age appropriate books to kids’ homes, one each month from birth to age five—is one such program. (Dolly “gets” the connection between poverty and reading.) We lucky ones can support our local libraries or bookmobile programs. We can volunteer as tutors or in a literacy program.
Reading matters because, frankly, the future of the world depends on it. One kid at a time, one book at a time.
*To be fair, this conclusion is mine for the sake of a dramatic line. Gaiman goes on to say, “It’s not one to one: you can’t say that a literate society has no criminality. But there are very real correlations. And I think some of those correlations, the simplest, come from something very simple. Literate people read fiction.”
Thank you to author Amy Parker, who helped me find my way out of this post. 🙂
Tweet: Can’t read? Go straight to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars.
Tweet: Reading really matters. Our lives depend on it.
Tweet: #ReadingMatters — One kid at a time, one book at a time.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”