Over the past weeks I have been discussing the critical importance of reading. Educational research and academic scholarship tell us that being a confident and competent reader has wide ranging positive effects on the personal, social and intellectual wellbeing of people from early childhood to the senior years.  Research continues to highlight the enormous benefits of reading for pleasure. Young people, particularly, need stories to make sense of themselves and their world. They dream in story, daydream in story, remember, hope, believe, learn, and love in story. Encounters with books – as well as being sites for enjoyment, and critical and creative thinking – play a significant part in the formation of one’s identity.

The act of reading therefore plays a crucial role in everyone’s life. The English writer Jeanette Winterson – author of books such as Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – states that books were her ‘magic carpets’ when she was young, taking her to a range of wonderful places. Books were also her friends. During her childhood, growing up in the city of Manchester, Winterson found a marvellous home in the local library, a community hub offering everyone a world rich in possibility, wonder, and awe.

We are a society yearning for a sense of possibility, wonder, and awe. As we come to the Easter break, I would encourage parents, teachers, and students to spend some quiet time with a good book. As the writer Virginia Woolf suggests, ‘Sometimes I think heaven must be one continuous unexpected reading.’ Wishing everyone a very Happy Easter. May the Risen Lord bless us with His peace and bring us new life.

Clare Murphy

English Coordinator and Literacy Instructional Coach