Mariah Adams
Aug 8, 2017 · 3 min read

Why not read?

In some cultures and homes it would be considered a luxury. With digital books, generally less expensive it allows many to read voraciously; of course some do not have the money to buy devices in order to take advantage of digital deals. Some, even children must work long hours, because bringing money into the home is the #1 priority. In the mostly the Western world people do not read because they are brought up with short attention spans and the instant gratification of movies and televised or produced for streaming, series.

I do enjoy both of the latter but was fortunate enough to have parents that are book hounds and one grandmother that also loved reading, which ultimately became her escape from being bedridden. It was not put upon the school to make sure I could read, but by my immediate family that provided me with an abundance of reading material, plus, I wanted to learn all of these new words, read to me, myself.

There weren’t 10 million TV shows devoted entirely to toddlers and younger children so I grew up watching what my parents and grandmother watched and wanting to read all of the “forbidden” horror novels, my grandmother read. I loved learning new words and topics that no one my age, until I was around age 10, had a clue about. It made me a complete outsider to my classmates but an insider with my grandmother and other adults.

Many television and videos geared for small children now, are this simplistic bunch of feel good gibberish, which stimulates regression more than progression. How to brush your teeth, washing of the hands (things you have parents for) and furry thingies speaking nonsensical crap, is hardly bringing up any Einstein’s or progressive thinkers. And why teach a child to read when it’s easier to toss your toddler in front of the TV and pop in a Blu-ray, so they shut the fuck up.

When one reads you can watch movies based on the book and feel all of the magic one felt reading the book, generally demolished, by other’s interpretations. When one reads, one is a participant, not a third party bystander.

Movies, for many years have been about achieving box office success, which means staying in the confines of certain ratings. PG13 could easily be an R if including certain subject matter from within a book and R can be slapped with “ unrated” which amounts to being slapped in the one theatre that still shows foreign films and other artistic endeavors that vast majority could give two shits about. That = zero money.

The one big example I can think of that shows how powerful words in a book are, comes from the behind the scenes feature of, The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe. The director is a huge fan of the Narnia Chronicles by CS Lewis and so am I.

When describing all of the massive CGI and make up effects that went into creating the huge battle scene, in the film, he referred to the book, which merely describes the battle in one sentence “The battle was all over a few minutes after their arrival” but that is not how the people that read the book remember it. I remember this huge, bloody clash of multitudes of different creatures battling it out. Good against evil, right against wrong; the giving of lives to bring love back to the creatures forced to live in silence and subservience.

And others have there own take on it but it is the participant, filling in all of detail.

The Narnia Chronicles are the very essence of the sadness one feels when being made to leave a place of wonder and come back to one’s day in, day out, mundane existence. But, I can always crack open the books again and escape through that wardrobe, as the children do, to a place where there are creatures and a sense of justice I will never feel in reality.

PS: Regarding the movie and Alanis Morissette song, in the credits; I appreciate the sentiment of the song but that is not how you pronounce Wunderkind :)