The Written Word is a Sacred and Powerful Thing.

When I was little my mother used to beg me to read. I would eventually pick up a book and start to read it but I never finished a book before getting rid of it. I thought that reading was boring and that it was for complete losers. It was for people who had zero imagination. That was until I was 13.
 When we moved to small town, nothing to do Magrath, Alberta. I didn't like the people, I didn't like the snobby non welcoming way the people ignored a new comer. I seriously hated the school and the teachers. I hated that the students were snobby and didn't like people that were different. It was like everyone had to fit into three different kinds of molds or else they were not welcome and were treated with disrespect. I used to wander the halls at lunch period and waste time. And it being such a small school with nothing to do, I found myself wandering into the library often. I would read the magazines in there or do word searches. Finally I thought to look at the books and read one.
 Now I can't remember the title of the book. But I remember the main character was named Gwen and she was a princess of a world that was beneath the fountain in Central Park. She escaped through the fountain and found herself in the normal human world. But she was also magical. She aged much slower. She met a man who also had escaped from the fountain and was now raising his great great great great grandchildren. They didn't know he was from another world, that he was magical and aged much slower then humans. Gwen explored the world, and learned many things, but also learned that when somebody discovered her secret they would go to great lengths to get control over her. So eventually she escaped back into her world, she left behind a friend and a boyfriend. She would often look back up through the fountain and see him looking down into it.
Now I was 13 when I read this and it peaked my interest. For the first time I had seen that reading gave me the opportunity to imagine things. To have dreams about something other then reality. Looking back the story line sounds retarted and weak but at the time, it gave me a different reality then the one I was living. I started reading all the time. I spent hours reading at home. I would read at lunch and during my free time at school. I read over 30 books in grade 8. It was opening my eyes to a new life. Over the next two years I discovered that I had particular taste in books. I liked reality and romance. Not the sexy steamy romance novels that are meant to create arousal but the story lines where someone would truly love someone. Like a mothers love for her daughter, a boyfriends genuine love for his girlfriend. A father daughter story. I also noticed that I loved reading particular writiers. Anita Stansfield, Nora Roberts, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte, James Clavell, Steinbeck, Jane Austen, John Grisham, Philippa Gregory, ect...
Now after all I have read, I have a new found love of books. The written word is not only a way for someone to escape into a fictional world, but it also gives a single person the ability to write their truth. They can tell their story. If it is about abuse, drugs, sex, work, school, parties, birthdays, being a parent, or just rambling on for the sake of it. The ability to express yourself to the world and connect with people on a personal level is strong and powerful. It gives those who feel invisible and like they have no purpose, a voice to say I AM HERE!
  So I treat all my books with respect and I make sure that they are organized and put away when I am not reading them. I love the written word and the ability it has to show me how much I have learned and how much I have grown.

“He that loves a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter. By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert and pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers, as in all fortunes.”
^{- Barrow}

“To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.”
^{- A C Grayling, Financial Times (in a review of A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel)}

“A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.”
^{- Edward P. Morgan}