What Neil Gaiman Says About the Nature and Benefits of Reading

In today’s digital world, we often forget just how enjoyable it is to read books. Many parents prefer to take their child with a tablet. So it is easier: the child plays bright games or watches cartoons and does not require much attention. But parents miss the fact that reading books in the development of a child is much more useful than playing on a tablet.





Today's edition. "Site" I want to share with you an article by Neil Gaiman, a writer and real master of children's and not very fairy tales. He says, Why do I need to read books? And why reading is the key to our future and happiness.

Neil Gaiman said, “So I’m going to talk to you about reading and that reading fiction and reading for pleasure is one of the most important things in human life.” But why are books so important to us, and how do our future and our children’s future depend on them?

The writer admitted that in this case he is very biased, because he is a writer himself. If people stopped buying books, he would be out of work.

Gaiman said, “I am certainly interested in people reading, in people reading fiction, in libraries and librarians existing and fostering a love of reading and the existence of places to read.” So I'm biased as a writer. But I am much more biased as a reader.





The author describes how he witnessed a conversation about the construction of private prisons. It turns out the prison industry has to plan for its future growth. They need to know what the number of prisoners will be in 15 years. And they can easily predict that using a simple algorithm.

It's based on surveys of what percentage of 10-year-olds can't read now. Of course, there is no direct dependency. We cannot say that there are no criminals in an educated society. But the relationship is visible. From this we conclude that fiction is important. Especially reading it for pleasure.





Neil Gaiman says, “The easiest way to guarantee literate children is to teach them to read and show them that reading is fun.” The simplest thing is to find books they like, access them and let them read them.

Fiction does two things: discovers a love of reading and develops empathy. The thirst to know what's going to happen next, the desire to turn the page, even if it's going to be hard, just to know where it's going to go, is a real drive. This whole process makes you learn new words, think differently, move forward. Over time, you will find that you cannot imagine your life without reading.





The second benefit of reading is empathy. But why should we develop it? Neil Gaiman says, “Empathy is a tool that brings people together and allows them to behave more than narcissistic loners.”

We also find in books something important for life in this world. We are also aware of the fact that the world does not have to be this way, it can change. Almost all people who have changed the world in one way or another, who invented the future, read science fiction as children.

Literature shows us a different world, it can take us where we have never been. Having been to these other worlds once, you will never be satisfied with the world in which you grow up. And discontent is a good thing, it makes you change and improve your world, make it different, make it better.





When do you start to realize this, if not in childhood? If in childhood a child has a desire to change the world for the better and make it others. Can you think of anything better?

Parents need to push the child to read, instill this love in him from the cradle. No, even before birth. Read your children stories, give them books, and encourage them to read. This will give them incredible benefits in the future. Provide children with books and a place where they can read them. Take him to the library eventually.





“Libraries are freedom. Freedom to read, freedom to communicate. It's education (which doesn't end the day we leave school or university), it's leisure, it's shelter and it's access to information, says Neil Gaiman.

Books are a way to communicate with people who are no longer there. A way to learn from those who created this world at a particular time. There are tales that are older than many countries, tales that have outlived cultures and walls that were told for the first time. If you don't value it, you don't value information, culture and wisdom. You drown out the voice of the past and harm the future.





Neil Gaiman says to every parent, “We need to read aloud to our children.” Read them what makes them happy. Read them stories that we are tired of. Talk to different voices, engage them, and keep reading just because they’ve learned to do it. To make reading aloud a moment of unity, a time when no one is looking at their phones, when the temptations of the world are set aside.”

All of us adults, children, writers and readers should dream. We have to make things up. We may be told endlessly that one man cannot change the world, that society is vast and that the individual is smaller than nothing. But it's not. It is individuals who change the world and create the future. And they do it because they know things can be different.





Neil Gaiman says, “We have to make things beautiful.” Not to make the world worse than it was before us, not to devastate the oceans, not to pass on our problems to the next generations. We have to clean up after ourselves and not leave our children in a world we so foolishly spoiled, robbed and mutilated. I hope we can give our children a world where they will read and read, where they will imagine and understand.”

And we hope so with Neil Gaiman. We hope that tonight you will put aside your new device and read a story to your child or share your favorite book with him.