According to a recent article in the New York Times, reading skills are another casualty of the pandemic. Lots of kids missed out on crucial early schooling, and it’s going to have a ripple effect for society.
The world needs people who love to read. Who are good at it. Who can ingest large amounts of information and understand the important points. Poor readers are more likely to drop out of high school, earn less as adults and become involved in the criminal justice system.
The day the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon, I read five Hardy Boys books. Mostly because we got to stay up so late, since Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface at 10:56 p.m.
(Sorry Steph Curry, but it happened.)
Who inspired my love of reading? My parents, mostly my mum. That’s why when an amazing library was built in our city, we made a donation in her honour. The inscription reads “For May Williams. She loved a good mystery.”
Like my parents, I did my best to turn our kids into readers. Story time was a given every night. That might be why my son blurted out the word “diplodocus” when he was only two. What kid doesn’t love dinosaurs?
There’s another important by-product of reading. If you’re an avid reader, you are almost always a better-than-average writer.
Reading is a gateway to so much, it’s hard to believe we don’t devote more attention to it.
Thanks for reading.
Mitchell & Sandovan novels 