Reading encourages us to be creative, innovative, ingenious, imaginative, & curious, qualities we need in abundance if we want to lead interesting lives. I agree with Elearnor Roosevelt who said: I think at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy god mother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.
I think reading is one of the most creative acts; you cannot read without being creative. Those 26 black marks, the meaning of the words, the implications of those meanings, these are all the products of the readers’ imagination. Reading requires a child to make something new, to take a leap. Books give children something that is provided by nothing else. That something, simply put, is the unknown. The imagination flows toward that which is not known. The familiar does not inspire it, but it surges spontaneously at the slightest opportunity for mystery and adventure. The imagination is a hunter who loves the challenge and the chase.
Alice had an active imagination and she was very good at believing in six impossible things before breakfast. And what were those six impossible things? “One, there are drinks that make you shrink. Two, there are foods that make you grow. Three, animals can talk. Four, cats can disappear. Five, there is a place called Underland. Six, I can slay the Jabberwocky.”
