LETTERS: The Movement Control Order (MCO) due to Covid-19 provides us the opportunity to plant the love of reading books. Promoting learning through reading will facilitate our desire to develop a culture of reading especially among our youth.
Generally our children who have to stay all day at home will find it boring but with the Movement Control Order (MCO) in place due to Covid-19, there is no better time than now.
Why should we foster a culture of reading? By fostering a love of reading, which is a joyous experience, we will be able to fill their lives new avenues of interest. Reading is a mental stimulation that will keep our brain active.
Youth who are stuck at home under the MCO should take reading as a new skill for self-improvement.
In the long run, it will also improve our memory. We will be able to gain new knowledge when we read something outside our field. With the wealth of knowledge we gained from reading, we can improve our skills.
Reading will definitely improve our proficiency in the English language. ith so much time we have at home, it gives us the opportunity to read as often and as widely as we can. Our children will gradually find out that books will offer them magical places where they can escape in a short while and enjoy scenic and beautiful lands with interesting experiences.
By reading, they will be able to see and appreciate pure nature and its beauty. Descriptive depiction of beautiful rural landscape with green grass and the blue bright sky will leave the reader in awe and he can still further imagine the unimaginable.
There is a real need to motivate and inspire our youth to reading now. I wish to quote a saying by Victor Hugo, a French poet and novelist which goes:
“To learn to read is to light a fire, every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
Another quotation that inspire reading is by an American writer, Madeline L’Engle who says: “A book, too can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness leading out into the expanding darkness”.
With these inspirational quotations it is high time we turn reading as a habit for us and our youth. Reading spiritual texts and good inspirational and motivational books will bring about an immense sense of calm to the readers.
It has been shown that reading self-help books will help people suffering from certain mood disorders and mild mental illnesses. Many of us find books as friends. I wish to quote what Paul Sweeney, a British author once said:
“You know you have read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend”.
Another benefit of reading is that it will fuel us with creativity and inspiration. With our enhanced knowledge from books, we will be able to put them to practical use.
Only with a well-read and well-educated population will our beloved nation Malaysia grow into a highly developed nation in a short span of time.
MOHAMED MOKHTAR AHMAD BAJUNID
Kuala Lumpur
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times