I was able to read before I was six. It wasn’t exactly that I was a
super highly intelligent kid, I just hated it to not know what all these weird
symbols everywhere meant. The summer before I came to school I read out loud the
menu at a restaurant to my parents and was proud as hell. I felt like the world
has just opened up to me and all the secrets would be ready to be revealed now.
Not long and I started reading books, those with a lot of pictures in them and
letters as big as my fingers, of course. Some time passed and then, when I was
about 7, I fell in love with books. The reason for that was an inconspicuous paperback
I got as a present. It was about a boy a little older than me, who used to live
in a cupboard under the stairs before he found out that he’s the most famous
wizard in a world full of magic. The day I started reading the first Harry
Potter book was the day I became not only a Potterhead but a crazy bookworm as
well. I was a real nerd and I am kind of proud of it. It made me to who I am
know. Since then I have read all the Harry Potter books several times and I
loved every single one of them.
After I started reading, I found that pretty much everything else is quite
boring. My life, school, it all seemed so normal, so grey, so uninteresting.
When I walked from the bus to school, I was holding my book in front of my face
to stay in this adventurous world just for five more minutes. It is actually
surprising that I never got hit by a car, the way I walked around staring into
the pages. Sometimes I even sat in class and followed Harry to Hogwarts with
the book on my knees under the table. I went to the library every second week
and, no kidding, I took home about ten books each time. When I piled them up,
they were higher than me. Every time I laid them out on the floor when I got
home and tried to decide in which fascinating life I wanted to dive in first
and it always was a hard decision to make.
The Harry Potter books made me fall in love with reading. Later I got to
read the Inkheart books and with them I fell in love with words. They taught me
about the importance of written thoughts, of the power a sentence can have and
of the magic of books. If you don’t know them, I can only recommend you to
change that. They are some of the most beautiful written books I’ve ever held
in my hands. The first time I read them, I was a child, about ten years old.
The last time was half a year ago when I was twenty and it still was amazing, it
reminded me of all the things I had been so aware of when I was younger and
forgot when I got older. It reminded me of how reading is healing and of the
fact that I have neglected my beloved second world, the world of books, since I
have been a grown up. There’s just so little time when you have to study, work,
see your friends and take care of other things. Over all these problems I faced
since I wasn’t a kid anymore, I totally forgot that the easiest way to leave
them behind for a while, is opening up a book. Diving into another reality. Being
someone else. At least for a while. When you read a book, you can be
everything. You can do everything. How on earth could I forget that? It is so
much more fun to watch an awesome fictive character deal with his problems than
dealing with your own. Sure, we can’t do that all the time as we have to tackle
them eventually. But why worry about things you can’t change anyway and why
wrap your mind around the same boring problem again and again, when you instead
can pick up a book and laugh and cry and fantasize?
When you read, your mind starts doing funny things. It gets creative. It
starts to imagine things. As you don’t have pictures of all these pretty
persons and great places, you have to make them up in your head, just using the
describing words written in the book. That shows how strong words are. They can
paint pictures in our heads, so bright and colourful and detailed no brush
could ever create. That is, by the way, why I never want to watch a movie based
on a book before I’ve read the book. Because when you read it afterwards, you
always have those film pictures in your mind. The face of that random actor
that happens to play the main character. You don’t have the chance to make up
your own persons, your own pictures.
Reading a good book is like dreaming. You aren’t in your own reality but
far away at different, unknown places (at least when you start, after seven
Potter books I know Hogwarts better than Ron does). When you have to put away
your book, it feels like you’re just wrong here, like you don’t belong here. I
remember the days when I just wouldn’t stop reading a good book and 200 pages a
day were normal. I just sat on the couch for really long without moving much
and then, when I got up and out, I felt a bit dizzy and my mind still was in
that other reality I got to know so well in the last few hours.
I know, this is a lot of talking about paper and ink. But I’ve been in
love with books since forever and I just had the feeling, I’d need to share my
nerdy thoughts on that topic. I wish, everyone would do more reading. People
would think and understand more. The world would probably be a better place (and
not just because grammar mistakes would be much rarer) if everyone would turn
off Netflix from time to time and read some literature instead. So, next time
you stare at the TV, thinking about how the actor just has far too much makeup
in his face, just turn it off and pick up a good book. Sounds weird, I know. We
always have the feeling that reading requires us to do something while watching
TV is just so easy and relaxing. But instead, reading does something to us. It
makes us smarter and more thoughtful. More emphatic and creative. It makes us
use our rarely used and needed fantasy and makes us think about things, we have
never thought about before. Reading is everything. It is the best medicine.It
is always the right thing to do, no matter if you’re sad or happy or lonely. It
is magical. Let yourself be enchanted!
