—
Our grandson celebrated his first birthday this week. We celebrated his birthday with his parents through a FaceTime call as they are currently living in Aberdeen Scotland. We sang Happy Birthday and shared in the opening of his gifts.
One thing that struck me as the gift opening occurred was that almost every gift was a book. This is not unusual as one of our family traditions is to gift one another with reading material. My wife and I have made the love of books, reading and learning a priority. And as we now have grandchildren we encourage their parents to continue that practice. We believe profoundly in the importance of reading and learning and have successfully passed that on to our own children and they hopefully will with theirs.
Where did this love of reading and learning come from? Both my wife and I grew up loving to read. Our parents modelled the importance of reading and supported us by encouraging us to take out books at school and community libraries.
One of my fondest memories growing up as a child were my visits to the Hastings Street Public Library in Vancouver. I would run to the library on Saturdays and spend many hours searching and borrowing all types of books. My favourite books though were the books written by Beverly Cleary of Henry Huggins and Ramona Quimby fame and Matt Christopher who wrote sports novels for young kids like The Catcher With the Glass Arm.
Those times in the library were precious to me. I would bury myself in the world of fiction and dream about being best friends with the characters of the books. It was there at the library where I developed such a love of books and a love of reading.
I would leave the library with a stack of books that I could read during the week. I took every opportunity at home to read whenever I could. I would read for hours in my room, read while watching TV, read hiding under a coffee table so no one could bother me, and often I would read my books instead of doing homework.
My family began to notice my love of reading and teased me about always having my nose in a book. I did not care about their teasing as I could endure it as long as I could get away and read. Eventually the teasing ceased, as they understood my insatiable appetite for books.
What started to then occur was that I began to receive books as gifts for birthdays, Christmas and other special occasions. Perhaps that is where the tradition of gifting books began. And it is probably no coincidence that I ended up being a teacher where I could pass on my love for reading and learning to others.
With the introduction of eBooks I hope the tradition of gifting hardcopy books does not disappear. My children would say they love the smell of a new book and I hope children today continue to receive such an experience. But even more worrisome to me is that the introduction of online downloading of eBooks will discourage parents from taking their children to local libraries.
Parents and grandparents many of you carve out time to take your children to a number of activities during the week. Driving your children to soccer, hockey, gymnastics, dance and music lessons are commonplace. I would encourage you to also designate time to drive your children to the library where they can discover books, magazines, and other reading material to sign out and take home. Not only will this stimulate a love of reading and learning, the added benefit of borrowing the books is that it is free and does not take a huge slice out of your budget.
I am so thankful for the immeasurable benefit of my love for books and reading. I have received a lifelong gift that can never be taken away.
—
This post was originally published on LeadershipIsHeart.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
—
—
Photo credit: Getty Images