I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.
Interpretation
Books can feel like friends, offering companionship and knowledge.
In this quote, Tahereh Mafi expresses the joy and comfort of being surrounded by books in a bookstore. She personifies the books, likening them to friends who beckon to her through their pages, highlighting the emotional connection and the warmth that literature can provide to those who seek refuge in it.
In practice
This quote can be shared at a book club meeting to express the joy of reading.
I spent my life folded between the pages of books._x000D_ In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.
The moon is a loyal companion._x000D_ It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human._x000D_ Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.
Every day in school, we said the pledge to the flag, 'with liberty and justice for all,' and I believed all that.
The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money is now paid for the education of a part than would be paid for that of the whole if systematically arranged.
Someday, hopefully very soon, 'diving within' as a preparation for learning and as a tool for developing the creative potential of the mind will be a standard part of every school’s curriculum.
In this modern world where activity is stressed almost to the point of mania, quietness as a childhood need is too often overlooked. Yet a child's need for quietness is the same today as it has always been--it may even be greater--for quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.
I write for children because I am interested in fantasy and the possibilities for experience of all kinds before the time of compromise. I believe that children are far more perceptive and wise than American books give them credit for being.
On the contrary, if they are treated with justice and humanity, proper example and the advantages of education given them, the coming years will be as bright and prosperous to the unfortunate race as the past has been dark and painful.
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