The greatest gift

I walked around the corner of my sister's house and there she sat, on her patio, reading a book.  You cannot imagine how happy that made me. 

I think if children only learned one thing in school it should be how to read.  Reading is both the key and the door to nearly everything else in life. 

It's possible to get through life without reading, but it is like reinventing the wheel over and over again.  Otherwise I can look up what other people have already done and follow their lead.

Want to make something different for dinner, understand spatial perspective, learn how to play a musical instrument, figure out quantum theory?  It is all here for the asking -- if-- I can read.

Reading means being able to entertain myself with a minimal amount of money, being able to make myself laugh, or cry, or get lost in a world completely beyond where I am.  If I can read, the playing field is leveled in so many ways.  Without reading, the world can be so difficult and mysterious that I don't know how people make it.

A hundred and fifty years ago books were harder to come by.  Now I have access to the internet on my phone, where I can look up many things including the phone number of a library that will look up a book I want and even find it at one of the other local libraries if it that is necessary.  Then all I need to do is go get it.

After life and health, reading is probably the greatest gift I can give anyone, especially a child.