Reading Books: Nutrition for Your Mind and Soul
秀光2年　河野くん（城南短大付属城南小出身）

　Do you like reading books? Of course I do. I like reading a book very much.

　I often hear adult people say that students these days do not read books. This is not only our fault, but also our parents' fault. Parents have very important roles to lead their children to the reading world.

　When I was very small, my parents read me a lot of books every day. I remember I used to go to sleep while my father or mother was reading to me every night. Thanks to my parents, I learned how to read HIRAGANA at my kindergarten, and I started reading comic books such as DORAEMON . Step by step, I began to read a lot of books on my own.

　Why do I like reading books so much?

　Simply because it's very interesting. It is a lot of fun. You can learn a lot of things without real experiences.

　For example, through some books, you can experience how you would feel if one of your family members died. Then you will notice again how important your family is. Another example is that you can learn about a lot of wars in the world, about sick people fighting against illnesses, and about people who have done a lot of good things for others in the world, etc.

　Experiences are very important. But there are a lot of things which you cannot experience in person. If you want to know about the life of ancient people, for example, it's impossible to turn back the clock. You have to open books to know about it.

　Nowadays, we have TV and the Internet. They are also informative, and we can get information much easier. So we tend to spend too much time on them and forget to read. I do, too. But we should be careful.

　You can enjoy TV and the Internet without "thinking". But when you are reading, you need to "think" at the same time. You must let your brain work, and then your imagination will develop. With TV or the Internet, you work passively, but with books your brain works quite actively. This is the biggest difference between these activities.

　Some people say, "If you forget to eat, you will be sick. If you forget to read, your mind will be sick. Books are nutrition for your mind and soul." I think this is true. Also when you eat, you should not eat junk food. Same! When you choose a book, you should be careful. Let's try not to choose a junk book.

　By reading a lot of books, I'm sure we can improve the quality of our lives dramatically. Get a book in your hand today. And another one tomorrow.