Why We All Need to Read Children's Books Now

I'm two days late posting my scheduled post, mostly because I find the days are rolling together in such a strange way that I have lost complete sense of what day of the week it actually is!

I've also discovered that I can read and clean, but that my writing is slow and plodding. You might be like me, or perhaps you are writing the next great book. If that is the case, I salute you!

But today I thought I'd talk about why we should all be reading children's books now.

I recently read Katherine Rundell's wonderful wee book, WHY YOU SHOULD READ CHILDREN'S BOOKS, EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE SO OLD AND WISE.

Rundell is an amazing #mglit writer from the U.K., and she writes movingly in this chapbook about how adults cast aside children's books at their own peril:

Children's Books are not a hiding place, they are a seeking place. Plunge yourself soul-forward into a children's book: see if you do not find in them an unexpected alchemy; if they will not un-dig in you something half hidden and half forgotten.

As we isolate from one another in our homes, can there be nothing finer than rediscovering a long-lost friend who is just waiting to reveal some nugget of truth we might have missed as a child?

Can we not read the latest wonderful middle grade novel and learn some universal truth of life that reminds us that we are all in this together?

 

Do we not need to escape to fantasy worlds in which protagonists do slay their dragon, or where families work together to solve problems? Do we not need tales of other cultures and ways of living so we can live another's life if only for a few hours?

Do we not need to chuckle at the absurd, root for the underdog?

Do we not need to look at history and learn from other times through the questioning lens of childhood? Do we not need to walk in another's shoes?

So I beg you: find that old friend!

Call you local indie bookstore whose offering curb side pickup and ask them to recommend the best kid lit on their shelves right now and have it delivered to your doorstep.

Revel in tales told with a caring that only a children's author can bring. 

Delight in the messages of hope and honour.

And encourage every adult you know to do the same. 

You want comfort? Children's books have it in spades.

As Rundell writes so beautifully:

When you read children's books you are given the space to read again as a child: to find your way back, back to the time when new discoveries came daily and when the world was colossal. before your imagination was trimmed and neatened as if it were an optional extra.

And please, order Rundell's book. It is a gift!

Stay safe!!!