Random House Books for Young Readers A Velocity of Being: Letters to A

A Velocity of Being: Letters to Young Readers, a beautiful and huge, 280-page hardcover brick of a book compiled over eight years or more through their asking dozens of leading people in the public sphere—many of them not surprisingly writers—about the way reading had been central in the shaping of their lives (no one said it hadn’t been important, of course; I assume any such letters were respectfully not included. I was imagining some of the letters from some of my high school students many years ago as a counter-argument)..Some letters I liked came from Jane Goodall, Neil Gaiman, (educational psychologist) Jerome Bruner, Ursula K. Le Guin, Yo-Yo Ma, Judy Blume. I liked most of them, don’t get me wrong, but after a time I wondered about the audience for such a book. Pro-reading types, of course: Librarians, English/language arts teachers, Goodreads readers!! as well as the target audience stated in the title, young readers, but if they already like to read they would mostly rather read a book than talk about why books are so great. And the kids (or adults) who hate reading, well, this book ain’t gonna talk ‘em into it. But many of the statements are lovely, what any of us might have said, though why have a book what we said, we want to know what successful said about how reading help shape them and become world-renowned. It’s a kind of well-written confirmation of most readers’ generally held views, some of them a bit short and obvious.But this is one gorgeous artifact, a coffee-table book every school and library oughtta have on display. I’ll tell you why I would personally want it, though. Popova also knows thousands of terrific illustrators, and she gets some of the best I know, a one page illustration per letter: Isabelle Arsenault, Chris Ware, Oliver Jeffers, Maira Kalman, Shaun Tan, Art Spiegelman. Almost every page is gorgeous, just stunning, like visual poems about reading. That’s the primary reason why this book gets five stars from me.I loved Chris Ware’s two page illustrated story, one of my faves.I liked this story: Author Elizabeth Gilbert skipped school to stay home and read Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. She got caught lying and was grounded. Yet she never forgot that day or that book. (How many days would I have preferred to stay home from school and just read a book all the way through!? Many of them!)Holocaust survivor Helen Fagin once lived in a Polish ghetto where reading was punishable by hard labor, even death (like slaves in this country!), but she risked her life running a secret school for kids, though it couldn’t be about facts, she soon realized:“What they needed wasn’t dry information but hope, the kind that comes from being transported into a dream-world of possibility. There are times when dreams sustain us more than facts.”Though I generally liked school, that’s why I would have wanted to stay home from time to time, as learning in school was often configured as an accumulation of facts and skills rather than passionate engagement with the world through the imagination. You and I already know this, but it is nice to see it confirmed here again and again in this book.

Very unusual and lovely book. Buy it. You won't regret it

Growing up in Rawlins, Wyoming until 5th grade and then moving to Casper, I was lucky enough to discover the libraries in both towns. Big stone buildings, huge stairs leading up to the doors, high ceilings, endless shelves of books. I was enthralled and so it all began. My love of books, being transported to worlds beyond small town Wyoming. The smell of books, the texture of paper, the titles, storylines...it was all a wonder, magic. This incredible book, A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader--eight years in the making just made my heart sing. When I read about it I immediately went to the small but wonderful library in our small town of Hailey, Idaho and tried to check it out. The librarian was captured when I described the book. We looked it up on Amazon and when she saw the list of people writing letters to youngsters about books, why they read them, loved them and how they shaped their lives--she scanned the libraries of Idaho to try to get it for me. When there were NO libraries that had the book she immediately decided to order it. So the FIRST library in Idaho to get this book allowed me to be the first person to check it out. This renewed my gratitude, love, appreciation and joy for libraries as an adult with the wonder of a child. This book is a delight... the words and graphic designs capturing every element of what reading can bring to your life by firing up your imagination and launching you into other worlds. Every library, school and parent should have a copy. I am making sure that happens in my community!!!

With this book maria popova offers the world an enduring gift. I would wish it into the hands of every adult and child and all those in between. Here are a few of my favorite take-aways (from just the first half!):*The most enduring relationships are the ones we have with ourselves and God (books deepen our growth in this direction too)--they help us learn what is true for us*Where the reader and writer meet they create something which has never existed before...also there is a meeting of a tree (from which the paper derived) and human gifts*You only have one life but reading gives you many, ditto re personality – you get to be inside another heart and mind.*Experiencing the elegance of language is one of the greatest pleasures of consciousness*Reading let's you be quiet in a chaotic world and commune with people who happen to be dead now*Reading takes apart our world and expectations and rearranges them...souls meet and find the way together*Barriers of personality fall, joys and sorrows accumulate, the individual pours himself into the collectivity and unreservedly experiences whatever is allotted to humanity--an expansion takes place*Reading is a great extension of time, a way for one person to live a thousand lives in a single life span, to watch the great impersonal universe at work, to watch the great personal psyche spar with it, until the very dizziness of it all becomes a source of compassion for ourselves

what a great book to read to children on the importance of reading in their lives