Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.

[ardvari]

The person who would become a lifelong reader should stumble upon very rich stuff first, early, and often. It lived within, a most agreeable kind of haunting.- Gregory Maguire, "Lost

Comments

[fishwithfeet]

I would kiss you if I could for this.

My mother would read to me every night from before I could remember, and she would tell me how I would sit and 'read' the Berenstein Bears to myself, only I had probably only memorized it, not actually learned the words, but the point remains. I loved books. Strangely, it took my brother SO much longer to get into the reading bug, even though we were brought up similarly.

He remarked to my mother when he was in college "Why didn't you ever make me read?! These books are awesome!" To which she responded, "I TRIED!"

I read The Giver and The Hobbit in elementary school. I fell in love with those books. I lost myself in the adventures of The Boxcar Children and Meg and Charles Wallace from A Wrinkle In Time. Because I loved The Hobbit, I tried the Lord of the Rings trilogy and could only grasp at the greatness of what I was reading. I then raided my father's bookshelves full of Asimov and other science fiction classics.

When I went back and read those books again, I had so much of a better understanding of what was going on, it was like reading them for the first time.

I can't imagine a life without books, and thank goodness for E-readers making my book collection so much easier to travel with... Though I can't resist having a physical copy of my favorites to keep in a ton of book shelves for my own children to discover. I want them to know the wonders of the worlds that authors can build, and I love being able to craft my own fantasies as well. There's something amazing in the written word that I wish more people would come to appreciate.

[fishwithfeet]

Also, I totally see what you did there. You clever girl :P And I feel like I need to make one more comment in order to use my third relevant icon to this post :D

[ardvari]

AH, awesome icon is awesome! It's such a great book. The movie... also funny. But it lacks some of the wonderfulness of the book, as movies tend to do.

[ardvari]

Yes, yes, yes!

I was really into Michael Ende growing up, so for me The Neverending Story and Momo were probably what The Hobbit was for you. I didn't read The Hobbit, and subsequently The Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion until I was in high school.

There's something amazing in the written word that I wish more people would come to appreciate. AMEN! :)