Wednesday 22 February 2012

The value of books

Writing Wednesday

Talked to a woman tonight who grew up in tough town in north east of England and in her teens it all went horribly wrong ...
.. one day her teacher told her to stay after class and instead of the bollocking she was expecting he said 'you think you're nothing...
...but you're not', and gave her a copy of '1984'. And then another book a week later and then another. Her friends' lives stalled,...
..one dying of a heroin overdose that could have killed her; but she went on to Cambridge and a PhD and is now a priest - because someone..
... disagreed with her self-assessment as worthless and gave her a book.

Rev Richard Coles, tweets, Mon 13 Feb 2012

Is it no wonder that books can be banned and censored? They have the power to change lives. They are the most important thing for a child to learn about and understand, as they develop imagination, independent thinking, thirst for knowledge and safely take you to places you've never been.

Long live the book!

2 comments:

The bike shed said...

On this we are agreed - if not on Dawkins!

Sorry not to be around and commenting for a while. I've been embroiled in in a mixture of personal, work and writing stuff for a couple of weeks.

Catharine Withenay said...

No worries!

It is hard for booklovers to disagree with a story like this!!

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