Something that is continually stressed in the English classroom is the importance of reading, specifically the need for students to develop an authentic love of reading to relish in the multitude of possibilities it allows for; from escaping to other worlds to finding comfort in the arms of new friends; from developing empathy for the trials and tribulations of others to understanding one’s own challenges and triumphs more clearly.

‘I do believe something magical can happen when you read a good book’ – J.K. Rowling

‘We read to know we are not alone’ – C.S. Lewis   

Last week, in my Year 11 English Advanced class, students were invited to read letters written to young readers by accomplished writers, artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and philosophers – such as Neil Gaiman, Anne Lamott, David Whyte and Jane Goodall – in a collection edited by Maria Popova, A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader. After some close consideration of the advice offered in the letters, and a reflection on their own experiences as young readers, students were asked to craft a letter of their own that offered some advice and encouragement to other young readers about the joy, knowledge and adventure that lives between the pages of a book.

Please enjoy some excerpts from their work:

“The truth is, in this picket-fenced world, books will not seek you, you must seek them out first. Run your soft, fragile fingers of the mind over the shelves splattered with books and count to 10 or 26 seconds as slowly or quickly as you need. Select at random or select at a precise point on the maze of spines. Do not follow the trends of the scripted world around you, fulfill your own insatiable desires for knowledge. Through this, you will find more about yourself than you could have ever known waiting at the door of impossible possibilities. Open it and see for yourself.” – Magdalena Kawa

“In encountering literature, the chains constricting your freedom to orbit stars, glide amongst clouds and wrestle behemoths, fall, rebinding themselves to bridges that link imagination to reality. The possibilities are truly endless. By your choosing, reading births the potential to venture in all forms. Realising the power of words incites a power of your choice. Much like bricklaying, reading is but an active puzzle that sanctions access to rooms unvisited. Rooms that house colour and experience in mediums often intangible to the person next to you. The trepidation felt remembering something forgotten, like a cold fish, slinks and bucks in your gut, awakening jolting fears akin to one’s sporadic rise to verbal, quaking alarms never set. Books are the key to the doors of such incomprehensible entities.” – Jacob Ramos

“Between the pages is the nexus of all worlds conceivable, the gateway to a vast catalogue of distant lands, peculiar peoples, wondrous adventures and countless subtle but thrilling lives to see through. Between the pages lies the crest of a wave rearing to crash a universe of adventure, emotion and experience on the baron eyes of the beholder. Between the pages is the seedling, yearning and aching to blossom into a cacophonous symphony of colour, spectacle and intrigue. Between the pages is the salvation from reality, the momentary escape which sustains our very being. What one discovers between the pages is the resolution of the self, necessary clarity only discoverable through each fold and turn. Between the pages lies lands beyond human conception, a world so vast, so beautiful our minds can merely attempt to paint a picture. The limitless horizon that is married to the beginning of a page pulls the reader between the arms of a loving mother, the tender kiss of a lover, the slay of a monster, the loss of a father. A thousand lives wash over the bare mind of a reader. Only between the pages of a book. Only between these very pages. Only between the pages of a book can one experience true experience.” – Matias Rennert

“When we read, we read for escapism, experience and empathy. We read for the satisfaction of another page turning or the accomplishment of the bookmark eagerly edging closer towards the end of the loose string. The string that weaves in and out of the characters’ lives, setting and plot which will eventually form a loop to reveal the fates and final destination of these characters which have left an imprint on our own journey. It is through this that we, as humans, gain a sense of our identity. A sense of belonging intertwined between our hearts and minds and the words starched onto the raw pages of power and passion. Pages which have the force to spark the intangibility of your artistry.” – Samarah Tolley

“When I was younger, not nearly old enough to tie my shoes or old enough to reach the clothes line, I found my comfort in the strings of letters that created characters from worlds I knew more about than my own. When I was younger, I spent more time in fantasy than reality,

And I loved it that way.” – Meghann Peeters  

“When I read it's like a splatter of paint, reading and reading, I feel so much colour, so much light and opportunity, so much creativity.” – April Phommasaeng-Hoang

“Your journey as a reader is like the growth of a seedling. The more you read, the more nourishment you receive and you begin to grow.” – Anna Segovia

“It is in reading - truly reading, that I found my peace.” – Liam Tannoury

Mrs Monique Hutchen

Assistant English Coordinator