I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.
Interpretation
Books can feel like friends, offering companionship and knowledge.
In this quote, Tahereh Mafi expresses the joy and comfort of being surrounded by books in a bookstore. She personifies the books, likening them to friends who beckon to her through their pages, highlighting the emotional connection and the warmth that literature can provide to those who seek refuge in it.
In practice
This quote can be shared at a book club meeting to express the joy of reading.
I spent my life folded between the pages of books._x000D_ In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.
The moon is a loyal companion._x000D_ It never leaves. Itβs always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day itβs a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human._x000D_ Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.
What can happen if a young reader picks up a book he/she isn't yet ready for? Questions, maybe. Usually, that child puts down the book and says, 'Boring.' Or, 'I'm not ready for this.' Kids are really good at knowing what they can handle.
To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.
If you are open-minded and ready to learn, there are many things which you can learn not only from books and instructors but from the very life experience itself.
It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.
During the first few months of an infant's life, its manner of taking the breast, of laying its head on the pillow, etc., becomes crystallized into imperative habits. This is why education must begin in the cradle.
There's a disease that young writers are susceptible to, which is, I will do this because I can - hubris, I suppose - without stopping to work out why.
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