Readers are Leaders

I was not a big reader growing up. My best friend growing up Brooke (when I wrote her name just now I wrote "book" instead of Brooke.  How appropriate) loved to read.  She read so much that we would sometimes hide her books from her.

I wish my love of reading started back then.  I think of all the free time I had as a kid.  All the times I said, "I'm bored" and I could have been reading.  Now when I read there's a guilty feeling I'm neglecting other things, and I usually am.

I'm not sure how the love of reading is born.  Maybe it's different for everyone.  Here is an excerpt from an essay by Dr. Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center

"My mother was a domestic.  Through her work, she observed that successful people spent a lot more time reading than they did watching television.  She announced that my brother and I could only watch two to three preselected TV programs during the week.  With our free time, we had to read two books each from the Detroit Public Library and submit to her written book reports.  She would mark them up with check marks and highlights.  Years later we realized her marks were a ruse.  My mother was illiterate; she had only received a third-grade education.

Although we had no money, between the covers of those books I could go anywhere, do anything, and be anybody."

How clever this woman was!  Maybe it starts with discipline and it turns into love.  That's how it started for me.  A few years ago a friend was telling me about the many books she was reading.  I asked how she had time.  She said she read instead of watching TV at night.  I tried it.  Slowly but surely my desire for books grew.  I'm pretty sure I even prayed for the Lord's help to want to read.  

I wonder if I could do this with my kids?  Restrict the TV, video games and computer.  And grow a love of reading in my home.

Do you like to read?