My Philosophy

On children’s books, that is.

Reading is important. Loving to read is important too. I believe that reading is the most empowering ability a person can possess. With that one skill, one can learn, experience, transform, grow and understand. Reading is an absolutely necessary part of life if one aspires to join the ranks of the intelligent, the cultured and the informed.

It’s never too early to start reading to a child. Fetuses are “especially receptive to sounds from the mother’s body and the external environment.”

It’s also never too late to start. Just because a child has not taken to reading doesn’t mean he or she won’t. You may just need to find what it is they love, a way in. If a child reads and enjoys just one thing, then you have a starting point and a foundation to build on.

Books provide comfort, a safe place to cuddle up and relax. They can provide moments of calm in what may otherwise be a hectic, crazy whirlwind of alarms, school, work, practice, meals, homework and life.

We can only ever experience life as ourselves but reading a book can provide an alternate point of view. We can know what it is to experience life as someone else. We can feel what others have been through, go places they’ve been, meet people they know, learn what they know. And these treasures can be accessed freely!

Reading can be a personal activity, something tranquil, an escape. Books take their reader to another place. Reading can be a group activity, a family can choose a book to read together, or a person can join a book club and share reading with others.

Have a difficult topic to broach with your young child? There’s a book for that. Want to visit a far off land? There’s a book for that. Need to learn about how rockets are made? Want to know what it was like to live in ancient India? Wonder what it’s like to live with a disability? Need to explain why butterflies migrate? There’s book for each of those too.

If you encourage reading, foster a love of books, and fill your home with them, you’ll have a reader on your hands. And once you have a reader, there are no limits to what can be learned.