Books are amazing. I love to read them. I love to collect them.
But you know what else is amazing? Moms. I love my mom. And she’s the primary reason I have such a great love of books now.
The first distinct memory I have of reading is actually shared by my two older sisters as well. Mom sat the three of us down on her bed and read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to us. I was about 4 years old at the time.
That same year, Mom decided to start homeschooling us. My two older sisters, being 7 and 9 at the time, already knew how to read from school. But I didn’t. And so I have fond recollections of my mom teaching me the alphabet and getting me started on books.
As my sisters and I grew older, both our parents continued to encourage reading (and education as a whole). There were multiple trips to the library. But I also specifically remember my mom offering me suggestions about what I should read.
Not everything was a slam dunk. When I was 11 or 12 years old, after I had exhausted my school library’s entire fantasy section, Mom checked out a book from the “grown-up” fantasy section of the community library for me. Unfortunately, she had never read the story herself, and the content was far more “grown-up” than I think she could have ever imagined. The book was promptly returned. But now that I am an adult, I chuckle at the memory.
However, that incident aside, I can honestly say my mom recommended many of the books that have stuck with me to this day. I don’t think I would have ever read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings without her endorsement. (Or, at least, I wouldn’t have read them until many years after the movies came out.)
Now that my sisters and I are grown, we’re all voracious readers. And Mom still shares book recommendations with us. And every time I read something that Mom first told me about, I think of her and thank God for my mom.
4 Responses
-Good article! My mother, she too inspired my love of reading!
-I have literally been talking on social media about how much my mom influenced my love of reading! What perfect timing for this post 😀
-What a sweet article! I love it! My mum inspired me as well. I read voraciously. I hope my children will do the same.
– My parents enabled me to read when I was three, and I am very glad they did. The earlier you learn to read as a child, the faster you read as a teenager and as an adult, and the more likely you are to earn degrees beyond a high school diploma.
That being said, I sometimes think the power of words is vastly overestimated. Words are like the fine grooves in a key, and sentences are keys. Once sentence will unlock some doors but fail to unlock others. You can be the greatest wordsmith in the history of mankind and know every word in every language, but that does not guarantee you will get everything you ask for or that everyone will believe everything you say or write. Some things have to be seen to be believed or understood. Other things have to be experienced to be believed or understood.