The BBC鈥檚 officially culminates in 聽weekend on聽November 5-6. But, this week, the week before seems 聽like the right time to remember why we love to read.
This on why we read shares what several famous people have found important about聽reading:
鈥淕alileo saw reading as 聽For Kafka, books were 鈥溾��; 聽Carl Sagan held them as鈥溾��; James Baldwin found in them ; for Polish Nobel laureate Wis艂awa Szymborska, they stood as 鈥�
But Neil Gaiman in , shares, perhaps, one of the most quoted answers to the question of why reading is important for everyone:
鈥淸E]verything changes when we read鈥iction 鈥is] a gateway drug to reading鈥 don’t think there is such a thing as a bad book for children鈥e need our children to get onto the reading ladder: anything that they enjoy reading will move them up, rung by rung, into literacy鈥nd the second thing fiction does is to build empathy鈥ou 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鈥mpathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.鈥�
This鈥攁long with all your reasons you #lovetoread鈥攊s why we must keep reading ourselves and why we must keep children reading鈥攁ll sorts of books, even books that feature difficult topics and gut-grabbing content, books that someone objects to.
Beginning this Sunday, September 25, look for a week-long blog review of topics about our right to read. These blogs honor the 2016 Banned Books Week and its .