I love reading. Anything that catches my interest, I read. Even if it’s just a brochure or a flyer from a real estate company, I read it. Reading gives me additional knowledge. It also brings me to new places I’ve never been to. When reading a novel, I get to meet interesting and mysterious characters. I get to meet the author of the novel. Reading also makes my rather sluggish and boring days more interesting. It adds color to my life.
You’d probably ask why I am writing about books right now. I just read the column of Susan Ople in Tempo (Manila Bulletin’s small broadsheet). She talked about how kids these days read less than kids of yesterday. When there was no internet yet, the kids either play outside their homes or stay inside to read. I speak from experience. When I was a kid, I would raid my grandma’s library and read the novels there. I love Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, the classics, Shakespeare and Archie. I remember wishing for grandma to give me all her books. I came from a middle class family where traveling to foreign countries or to Visayas and Mindanao was not the tradition during summer and holidays. We usually stay home and I would either go play with my cousins or read. I loved (still do) reading more than the former. I might not have physically traveled to foreign countries but because of the books that I read, I got to know different states in America, Italy, England, several Asian countries and more.
Susan Ople is telling her readers to read to kids. I believe that kids are missing so much when they opt to play internet games instead of rubbing elbows with The Little Prince. They should at least get to read the classics. Do they even know Rumpelstiltskin? I remember asking a cousin of mine if he knows Shakespeare, or even Archie, and was disappointed because he doesn’t read comics at all. But when you ask him what Ragnarok and other online games are, well, he is the expert. My brother at least knows some of the classics, have been an Archie fan and have read Hardy Boys. But like other kids of his generation, he’s more into games and anime. Which is really sad, if you think about it.
Do you read to your kids? Do you even read books yourself? If you don’t, take the time to read. It will change your perspective of life. It will give your day a new meaning. It will make a difference in your kid’s life, and in yours.
*Originally posted on July 6, 2008
