Few people would argue that reading, in
general, is bad for your mind. However, I have encountered some people
who seem to think that the value of reading is lessened by the type of
reading you’re doing. Fiction is apparently less worthwhile reading
than non-fiction, and even in the world of reading fiction, adult
fiction is often considered far more worthy of our time.
To which I say: ridiculous! I won’t go into why young adult fiction
is great because there are plenty of others who have articulated that
quite nicely. My point today is that we can learn a lot about the real
world from fiction (no matter what the age of the intended audience
is). This, of course, is not limited to the specifics that I want to
point out; we can learn about anything in the real world from fiction.
Fiction has often been a better teacher than all my years in school. It
has given me ideas, knowledge, questions, and the means to find
answers.
Fiction can teach us to think. It can teach us new ideas, and it can
teach us to question what we have been taught. Not that it is wrong,
but to question, which is vital. To accept something blindly keeps our
minds weak; to open our eyes and question makes us strong. This is a
lesson I have learned from fiction.
Fiction can teach us about how people interact, and how they think.
People do all sorts of crazy things, and maybe we can’t walk up to them
and ask them why, but, through reading stories about all kinds of
people, we can try to figure it out ourselves. This sort of lesson is
universal throughout fiction; we learn about people whether the book we
are reading takes place at Hogwarts or in Sydney, Australia. Even
better, we learn about people whose backgrounds may differ from our
own. We learn that we are all people, no matter where we come from.
Fiction can teach us about far-off places we don’t get the chance to
experience for ourselves. I’ve never been to Miami, Florida, for
example. However, I’ve read several great books with Miami as an
integral part of the story, so I’d like to think I know something about
it. Last year, I went to New York City for the first time. I’d never
been there, but it was still, in a way, familiar; I’ve read countless
books set in New York. I recognized things I’d never seen!
Fiction can teach us about history. Though I’ve taken several
wonderful history courses, I’ve never had a class that went in-depth
about the Holocaust and World War II (apparently, it’s never been
important on the exam–don’t we love test-centered learning?). As awful
as this part of history is, it is also important. It is important to
understand what happened, to understand how awful it was, and to
understand how it happened, so as to try to prevent history from
repeating itself. Even though I never learned much about it at school,
I know a lot about this period in history. Why? Because of the
countless books I’ve read on it, most of them fiction (though, to be
honest, some of it was non-fiction as well). Take any time period in
history, and read some fiction set there; I guarantee you’ll learn
loads.
Fiction can teach us to express ourselves. We learn by example, and
the example here is to be able to write our thoughts, to be articulate
and use language to its fullest extent. We can express our ideas, and
communicate with other people. From reading, no matter what book, we
learn new tricks of language, new vocabulary, or, if it’s poorly
written, what not to do.
Fiction can teach us about possibilities. It teaches us to dream.
Just because something has not happened to us does not mean it is out
of reach. Fiction lets us touch these dreams, lets us hope they can
become reality, and even lets them become like reality, if only for a
few hours. I am sorry for anyone who does not read fiction because it
is not “real;” I am sorry for anyone who has lost their imagination.