In the last few delicious days of summer, I took my grandchildren to the splash park on Stephens Lake Park, a gathering place in my home of Columbia, Missouri. As we left with armfuls of wet towels and stepping across the parking lot in our squishy flip flops, I saw a curious wooden box with a glass door. Inspecting it, we found it was a miniature grab-n-go library. “Take one, Leave one,” the sign said.
The presence of this little book-spot reminded me of the culture of reading that our city wants to propagate. We have One Read events of our city and schools where all citizens are invited to read the same book and to meet to talk about it. When I lived in Mongolia around the turn of the century, it was quite common to see riders on the bus and trolley reading novels, the newspaper, and poetry. Data from the Soviet years reported the literacy levels of the nation at 98%. Even the nomads, famous for cowboy-like treks with their sheep, cattle and camels, were taught to speak in Russian and to read in both Russian and Mongolian.
Interestingly, something that came with this high level of literacy was full trust in the source. If it was in print, it was truth. When the reporters stated that the Chinese were poisoning the cabbages imported into the country, the Mongolian women believed it. When they said, there were rats who could chew through cement one foot-thick and chew out the electric lines in our homes, our neighbor’s believed it. But the main thing I want to emphasize is that they were reading!
My friend who lived in Southeast Asia for over 15 years found the opposite situation. The written word was treasured, offers to teach reading to adults was met with yawns, and teaching the Christian faith through the study of the Bible took on challenges without readers in the room.
I’m curious how the culture of reading is changing in your corner of the world. It seems to me, growing up in the United States in the 60s, one book could change a life and mold a future. The growth and demise of the characters within the pages inspired or scared us into making wiser choices. Now it takes great effort to nurture a culture of reading when books are hidden in the Kindle and the laptops hog the space on the coffee table.
