Why Books?

I learned to read when I was six, late by today’s helicopter-parenting standards and perhaps

surprising considering my surroundings. My parents were avid readers; I grew up in a house

filled with books. English was not my first language, so I may have struggled with the learning

process, but I don’t remember this problem.

What I do remember: sitting at a desk in my first-grade classroom, staring at the rectangular-

shaped workbook that was supposed to usher me into the world of reading. I remember the

frustration. I wanted to make sense of the words on the book cover. I wanted to turn the pages and read the stories that inspired the images. I didn’t want to be read to; I wanted to read for myself, and I could not. I fretted; I would never learn. I asked myself: why was it so hard for me?

These thoughts say more about my tendency to catastrophize than anything else, for, of course, I did learn to read, and once I did, I didn’t stop. I fit all the reading clichés of the little girl at the library, piling up books for empty summer days, long car trips, lonely recesses. I loved bookstores as much as toy shops. Books were, and still are, my favorite gift.

Reading was a hobby, a pastime, entertainment. Reading was also a lifeline. A friend observed, “Maria responds to a problem by finding a book.” I guess that’s true. Sometimes that book is self-help or pop-science, but other times it’s a novel or a memoir or a collection of poetry. Sometimes the book provides an escape and other times it might provide a frame to make a problem manageable or a lens through which to find understanding. Sometimes I find

consolation in understanding I am not alone.

Over the years, I have read my way through joys, struggles, and loss, finding on those pages

distraction, inspiration, strength. Numerous times, a book I didn’t know I needed managed to

find its way to me. Maybe someone gave it to me; maybe I found it featured in a bookstore, or I picked it off my own shelf, surprised to find something new.

The sight of books comforts me; libraries, bookstores, offices crammed with lined bookshelves are my safe spaces. I’m not bothered by the piles of donated books in my office, in my car, in bins on my back porch. Instead, I look at those books and consider the possibilities.

So why books?

One reason –

I hope each book we collect finds its way to the person who needs to read it. I hope that reading this book will bring comfort, hope, and promise, whatever that person, that reader, needs at that moment.