As a parent, when was the last time you saw your child holding a book? When was the last time you took your time and dedicated it to a book?
These are simple but all-important questions that we should more often than not ask ourselves, especially when the world celebrates World Book and Copyright Day on April 23.
World Book and Copyright Day is a special day set aside to recognise, celebrate and promote the enjoyment of books and reading. On a light note, this is a special day to literati as it is the date on which several prominent authors – William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega – breathed their last.
With the new technological advancements, reading culture is slowly fading away. Unlike some years back when reading a book was a daily necessity, it's unfortunate that in modern times, reading is optional and less cherished. For that matter, it has become less fashionable.
Unlike STEM courses that are highly praised and receive all the necessary attention as they are believed to offer solutions to daily life problems, literature as a field is highly underrated. It's only celebrated among those who study it. And with such, reading culture continues to die day in and day out.
But just like the STEM courses, literature too can offer solutions. Action research in literature is at the forefront of deliberating societal solutions and creating awareness of the existence of incongruities within society.
As such, literature becomes not only a watchdog to monitor our interactions with the environment but a cornerstone that helps in the foundation of values and moral uprightness.
Giving it a deep reflection, literature is everything. This is so because a medical student will have to read literature about surgery. A law student will have to read books related to law and diplomacy. A farmer will be forced to read agriculture-related books.
This means that literature goes beyond fiction (novels, poems and short stories). It's our daily thing. We survive because of literature. We are because literature is. Even our own lives are stories and in everything, we all become stories from beginning to end.
Nowadays, almost all students in learning institutions only think about reading when exams are fast approaching. Sometimes, they peruse through badly scribbled PDFs, sometimes often without an iota of the necessary content or they simply rush to the summaries section on the internet and boast of having read.
This shouldn't be the norm. Reading should be a daily routine. We should love books even more than how Jesus loved the Church. Reading is a common habit among successful entrepreneurs and leaders as it gives them insights, understanding, knowledge and different perspectives about life.
When Elon Musk was asked how he learnt to build rockets, he replied; "I read books." Now what's your excuse for not reading if indeed you want to be a game changer?
Social media and other advancements in technology pose a dangerous threat to reading culture. The main reason we have a poor reading culture in modern times is because time spent on the internet is more than time spent on a book page.
We are in a generation where children fight for a remote control system rather than a book. Our children wish to be like so and so in certain movies despising characters in books. They forget that even in books, there are heroes to be emulated and villains' actions to learn from.
Surprisingly, we're not shocked anymore. PLO Lumumba would argue that we are the authors of our own misfortunes. Are there times you have taken your children for a book reading session or competition? Does your family ever visit community libraries? Can you compare the time you have dedicated to books to the time you have set aside for entertainment events and joints?
Creating a reading culture among our youngsters is paving the way for a successful future. This is possible if a number of factors are taken into consideration. First, let's minimise our children's screen time. Spending too much time on screens has been linked to several health side effects like obesity.
We are not completely shutting down the other things within the household and the community. A good child is well brought up, with a sound mind and a sound body.
Reading is good. Doing other things is also good. The question remains, how do we divide the precious time we have to cater for all the things that we need to do? As for the body, so for the mind and the soul. Dedicate the hours of your breathing time to build both the body, the mind and the soul.
Odero is a Master's Degree Literature student and Literature analyst Wafula is library social media manager at Rongo University
