Reading creates community

“Reading is a shared experience that creates a bond between people”

-The Wise Librarian

A  patron came to the library recently looking for good books to read with her five-year-old granddaughter. I asked her some questions to learn what would fill her need. Librarians call that conversation a Readers Advisory Interview. I will write about that another time. Today, I want to focus on this grandparent looking for something to read with her grandchild.

I learned that the grandmother and granddaughter haven't seen each other in person for months because of Covid-19. They do visit through online video-chat and Grandmother wanted books to read as bedtime stories.

This is one of the magical powers of reading. It is a shared experience that creates a bond between people. Children as young as newborn are held by adults and read to.  Classrooms of students read aloud together. Adults read the same book on their own time then meet to talk about it. People of all ages attend and participate in public readings of poetry. The thoughts that someone wrote down because they wanted to share the thoughts with others are indeed picked up by other people and shared again. Shared by reading to a child. Shared by book club discussion. Shared by writing a review or telling a friend, "I just read a good book. You might like it. It made me think about------."

Reading is never a solitary pursuit. The reader is listening to the thoughts of the writer. Often, the reader then shares those thoughts with someone else. Like a grandparent who uses precious time during an online visit to read a book to a child so that they have a shared experience to talk about. Reading creates community.