Books.

 When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

Michel de Montaigne
French essayist (1533 - 1592)

As a German philosopher once said, paraphrased, "If there was no music in the world, life would not be worth living." I would add books to that statement without reservation.

Though attributed to a profound imagination, I can't imagine a life without books.

Books can transport you to places never envisaged; introduce you to people you would most certainly like to meet but never will; take you into the minds of the great or the evilest; just the act of reading a good book, as de Montaigne states above, "...can banish the clouds from my mind."

After teaching English in middle and secondary school for some years, students would instead stick molten nails into their ignorant eyes than read a book. Well, it should go without saying, there's too much to see and do: TV, movies, video games, friends, sports, cars, and interest in the opposite sex to have a spare 15 minutes to read a book - books are for "geeks."

Have books become an acquired taste?

To answer that question, I would have to say no.

The appreciation for books starts at home, not at school.

My mother and, less so, my father's books were almost sacred, relics of knowledge and experience objects to be revered and respected. Read as a child every night. I remember I couldn't wait to have the ability to read myself. My mother was always reading, and my father mainly read at night before bed. Books were always in the house.

When I hear a student say, "I hate reading; too hard...boring." Even after years of teaching, my stomach ties in knots, and I have to remind myself that an appreciation for books had never been cultivated in the home.

Is it my job to get some of these children interested at such a late stage in their lives? Yes, that's my job...and there are a few wins.

But once they get it, it never leaves them.

The written word is a gift from the gods, and a good story often does more good than harm.

Without books in the world, life would not be worth living.

Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, my book pile is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.

Arnold Lobel

Journal 2010.