PBS NewsHour
Want to feel connected? There’s a book for that.
The Mott Haven Public Library branch was a long city block from my public housing apartment in the South Bronx. It was there that I discovered the world outside of my neighborhood. There were incredible jungles in far off lands, castles in countries that I swore I would never visit, languages that didn’t quite look like American English, and more importantly, people that I only could wish to meet someday.
Then, my love of books was slowly replaced by the new window into the world, television. It was the 1950s and 1960s. Slowly, the more than weekly trips slowed to a mere trickle a month. It was still awesome but the rows and shelves of books couldn’t compete with Roy Rogers, Mickey Mouse Club, and gangster movies from the 1940s.
We all know that reading is still in stiff competition with television and now online and social media. The challenge for parents today, especially low-income families, is to still teach their children to read from books so that they can grow up to compete in a world where you better know how to read to survive. Knowing how to only watch a video online is not going to be enough. You still need to learn how to string together an understandable and coherent string of words that can be used to communicate effectively with another human being.
Lisa Lucas, executive director of the National Book Foundation, spoke with PBS Newshour about the power of books and how they connect us to one another.
