I love books...more accurately, I love stories. I love escaping into another world, connecting with characters and places and emotions so deeply that it makes it difficult to share with people in reality. I also know, I'm not the only one. I see things all the time on Facebook about people being 'book nerds'. I see the links to things like 'problems only book nerds understand' or '10 signs you're a book nerd'. There's quite a few out there, and I see why; books inform us, escape us, give us hope, inspire us, encourage us, give us courage...
What is more puzzling to me, is that there might be people out there who more relate on the side of NOT liking to read. This seems like an impossibility to me. My husband told me he was one of these people. I refused to believe such a thing was possible, and the more I questioned, and made him question, we came to realize, it wasn't so much that he hated to read, but rather, he was taught to hate to read.
There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book.—Frank Serafini
Here's my theory: there is no person who innately hates to read...hear me out here. Let's step away from all the reasons why reading is so valuable, let's step away from all the benefits of reading to children and it's importance in academics or education.
Instead I want to state a simple belief: I believe it is part of our make-up to love stories. (I think that's part of why Jesus taught in parables.) I have NEVER in my years of child care met a child that didn't love stories. I haven't met a person who didn't love some form of a story, whether it be through lyrics or a movie or a book. So how is it that someone wouldn't love books?
Back to my husband- he isn't a fast reader. His experience of childhood stories turned into assignments, and reading assignments as he entered high school, where he struggled to keep up and admittedly quit before he even started. Books in turn became something that he 'failed' at. Once I realized that his dislike for books was rather a dislike for due dates, and assignments, I lovingly urged him (begged him, pleaded with him...) to try reading a fiction by Ted Dekker for fun. He loved it. He loved it, because he loved the story, because we all love stories.
I understand that some people might have various reasons that reading itself might be a struggle (dyslexia I would imagine would be a bit of a annoyance for reading) yet all in all, I cannot believe that a person can truly dislike books.
Watch grown ups in the childrens section of the book store. You can tell when they see a book they loved from their childhood. We all have those sentimental books that we cherished, and the fun part about it, is that we ALL have books we love.
So sure, there's a bunch of book nerds out there, to me, this is nothing extraordinary. I'm more interested in if there is truly someone out there who doesn't love stories? I cannot imagine that there is.
