Have You Read a Good Book Lately?
Guest post by Kim Wierman
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. ~Henry David Thoreau
Books, the real paper kind that you can stick in your handbag or throw in with the beach chair are, I fear, becoming replaced with technology. I saw a newscast the other night about the Ramona series of books by Beverly Cleary and how a mother who loved those books as a child had passed down the love of those characters to her own daughter. The daughter, however, was reading hers on a Kindle! Don’t get me wrong, I am all for new technology. It has opened many doors and makes many books available to us any time, any place – without having a backpack weighing 50lbs. However, there is a warmth and familiarity that comes with holding a real book in your hands and then passing it to someone else’s hands knowing something physical that you have loved and touched is being read and cherished in the same way.
My boys have a book from their childhood that they treasure. It is called, “The Brave Cowboy,” written by Joan Walsh Anglund. It has black and white illustrations with the little boy’s imagination superimposed in red. For example, as he plays cowboy in his room there are Indians outlined in red hiding behind his headboard. A chair straddled backwards has become his trusty horse and we know this from the red illustration. The book was first printed in 1959, the year their dad was born. It was a book from his childhood he wanted to share with his boys. Each night before bed, after reading the story through once, we would go to the inside front and back covers where there were tiny illustrations of cool cowboy and Indian stuff. The boys would hunt for the picture I was describing. It went something like, “find the cactus with three branches” or “find the tomahawk with the pointed end,” and so forth. You can’t recreate that on a screen.
The book was originally out of print so I searched high and low for a copy and found a bookseller with a little shop in Maine who had a copy. I paid $50 for it so my children could have the same vintage of book their father so loved. Since their dad passed away they have each come to me on separate occasions and asked if they could have it for their children someday. They wanted the same book they read as little children. I was pleased to find that since I went on my search for a 1959 edition, they have had another printing and you can get new copies more readily and affordably.
The sharing of a special book with someone you care about is like sharing a piece of yourself. There is something engaging about reading a book someone has lent you and finding they have highlighted or underlined a passage. You can see when they may have turned down a corner to save their place. You can hold a piece of them that meant something and have insight into what meaning they may have taken away from it. You just don’t get that from words on a screen no matter how extraordinary the technology has become.
I would encourage us all to take time to read from real paper books – to feel the texture of its pages and breathe in the scent of the mixture of ink and paper. Pass along a book that has meant something to you to someone you care about, and share the gift of books.
Photo courtesy of Simon Cocks.
Cheryl Nordyke and Kim Wierman are the founders of Waves of Gratitude - a company that exists because of their belief that when life presents you with professional and personal difficulties, a strong foundation of gratitude can help turn those difficulties into opportunities. The owner’s resolve to build a future based on a foundation of gratitude is unwavering. The pair created an online store to give everyone the opportunity to “wear” powerful symbols of gratitude, jewelry and apparel made to personalize the concepts of hope, love, legacy, creativity, optimism, inspiration, confidence and awakening that make everyone beautiful inside and out.
