you know why we all used to read so much? you question what happened to us? why now reading a whole book is a slog and makes you feel tired and a little bit sad inside, and you don't have the focus and would rather be reading fanfic?
we were the lonely kids who didn't have ipads. we didn't have tech to fill our hours. and if we did our minds could not be satisfied with angry birds the original game about yeeting birds at green pigs. so where did we go? what did we turn to because we didn't have a lot of friends?
books.
we could have books.
books were easy, books were there. your mom would be more happy to take you to the library again after you read ten books than to re-charge your ipad.
and books fill the void that being lonely creates, because when you read a book, you're not yourself. the world is not just you, you're inside someone else's head, for as long as it takes to read the freaking book.
And can i just say, that's how it worked.
instead of taking our phones everywhere, we took books. instead of reading fanfic at night, we read our favorite books again. instead of playing super smash bros on the nintendo switch, we read.
we read books that were fast paced, relateable, fun. we read things that made our hearts beat faster and our minds jump for joy. we read and we read and we read some more, because double spaced books about elves and space ships and a touch of romance were better than whatever other reality we had.
we read so much because children's authors unwittingly gave millions of children a healthy coping mechanism, and it was honestly probably all of ours.
