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Fiction for Dessert
A smooth flowing story, with crunchy word topping, please!
“Read for an hour, and you can have dessert.” Are you kidding? Reading is dessert.
For a while, when I was little, my parents gave me a choice of punishments: “Go to your room and think about it, or take a spanking and go back outside to play.” Well, don’t throw me in that briar patch…
It didn’t take them long to catch on that solitary confinement, to an introverted child with an overactive imagination and well-stocked bookshelves is no punishment at all.
I once confessed to my mom that one of my greatest joys was surreptitious reading, under the covers, with a flashlight, after bedtime. She confessed to me: “I know. I made sure your flashlight always had fresh batteries.”
Excuses, Excuses!
What happened to that child, who found such joy in reading, telling, and writing stories?
Life. Apparently, I’m not alone. Despite 4 out of 5 adults being at least functionally literate, only 72% of U.S. adults have read a single book in the past year. And that’s not necessarily a book they read just for the pleasure of it.
For me, “life” included work, law school, having babies…these things can’t wait.
