I believe in the experience of reading a book

The Wareham Program, a women's leadership development program that runs each semester, has a final project where participants are asked to write their own This I Believe, using the format setup by the NPR Radio Project.This is one student's belief.
 

            There is a secret that lies between two pieces of pressed cardboard.  This secret is hidden in artfully stylized contours and represented by way of a complex medium, composed of pigments, resins, particulate matter, and fluorescers all blended together to be displayed on dry, cellulose pulp.  I am talking about a book and its secret is the experience of reading.  Not the electronic, intangible, download-from-amazon.com-to-your-kindle, excuse for a reading experience, an actual, physically turn the page, dog-eared corners, and coffee stains on the cover, book. 

            You see, the experience of reading is more than just seeing the words form sentences on the page, or screen even. It is a physically, mentally, and emotionally engaging adventure into unknown worlds, a source for life lessons, and an unconscious absorption of knowledge that inspires the imagination in the reader!

            My love of reading began at a very young age.  I have continued to read more and more as I continue to grow up, finding solace in a comfy armchair, a bright lamp over my shoulder, and a worn novel in my hands.  I became a sled dog on grand adventures in The Call of the Wild, a loving and dedicated sister in Little Women, and victim of injustices and struggles as an orphaned child in Oliver Twist. Books are the greatest source of knowledge and serve as fodder for creativity.  In a book you can hold the whole picture, unlike a screen in which you are only privy to isolated events and limited perspectives due to a single-page view. 

            Can you let your tears fall onto an LCD screen? Yes, but the tear bubbles up and sits there, a rejected droplet forced to remain isolated in the outside world. Can you let your tears fall onto a paper page? Yes, and the tear becomes a part of the story! The tear melts into the ink and the page as it is absorbed!  A part of the experience! A book is organic! It is made of the elements of life that we experience, unlike the screen, a dead, electronic, impersonal reflector of life.

            I believe the experience of reading a book is inherently human.  A book is a place to commiserate with the struggles of past generations, an empathetic expression of the human condition, an integration of the world relationship. The secret to this though, lies in the book and not on the screen.

 Kindly,

                                                        Jess Bolander

Junior, English & Secondary Education

Fall 2011 Wareham graduate