Thinking for yourself (scares people)
A sufficiently wide reading lsit from a young age teaches you to think for yourself. I can get why that may frighten even the nicest and sweetest of people: What if your child starts thinking things you don’t approve of?
Well, that’s kind of their right. The only things we ever really own in our existence is our body and our mind, and giving your child the tools to make up their own mind is one of the most powerful gifts you can give them.
How powerful? I analyse everything. Adverts (You’re noot good enough! Buy this and you will be!) Newspapers, books… I winkle out its message and show it to the light. It means I am less effected by the constant messages the world throws at us all the time, and am more likely to do something because it seems like the right thing to do.
So teaching a child to love books, to read widely and obove the reccomended age range is absolutely necessary, says the biased woman hoping to get her novel finished and into the hands of publishers soon.
But you know what? This goes for YOU, too. Adults. Narrow reading breeds narrow minds. You should start reading stuff you wouldn’t normally, out of your comfort zone, just to see if you like it, if nothing else. If you always read fiction, try a couple of enjoyable fact books (I suggest Bad Science by Ben Goldacre). If you never read fiction, start. Try some of the more accessible classics (don’t start with Wuthering Heights unless you like struggling through unintelligible dialect). Try some trashy, entertaining brain candy. The more you read, the more capable you are of thinking about the messages the world displays you, and the broader your world becomes.
I fucking LOVE books 