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"I feel as if I had opened a book and found roses of yesterday sweet and fragrant, between its leaves." ~Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

The roses of yesterday, how I adore that phrase. Writing like that must be savored a sentence at a time not plowed through in a mad fury to get to the end of the story and I'm afraid writing like this is fading away in our instant gratification society. Writing is less an art to be appreciated when intelligent stories are well crafted and each line thoughtfully constructed and more a way to tell the same cheap story with more shocking content each time around.

I've held several jobs that involved working with parents and children to increase literacy. And each time, I always hear at least one parent say, "Well I don't really care what they read as long as they're reading." What a stupid thing to say! I'm sorry, but in what other aspect of life does such an outlook produce good results? Well, I don't really care how much junk they eat as long as they grow up strong and healthy. Well, I don't care how cheap and flimsy the materials are, as long as the house is safe and sturdy. Well, I don't care how low their IQs are and how substandard their medical educations were, as long as the doctors and nurses do a good job on my open heart surgery. You see how stupid that sounds when applied to anything else? If you put trash into your body, you will be unhealthy. If you build your house out of trash, it will fall down. It's the very same if you put trash into your (or your children's) brain.

Take a moment to consider what's going into your precious mind. Care for it. Treat it with respect. Choose things written by people who want to craft a story not sell you titillating trash to make a buck--yes, that includes romance novels about bored house wives who time travel to the bygone days of kilted Scotland and most "Young Adult" i.e. teen fiction including the vampire/werewolf/MarySue love triangle variety. If sex is the main selling point, you can bet it's because that person doesn't know how to really write a story and they're just going to drag you down with them. Yes, I actually do think reading that stuff makes you dumber.

Those sorts of books are the gummy bears of fiction. Go for the Steak and Baked Potato kind of fiction like the writings of Thomas Hardy, Alexander Dumas, Ray Bradbury, Flannery O'Connor, Aldous Huxley, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Amy Tan, J.R.R. Tolkein, Rudyard Kipling, just to name a few. These are the masters of their crafts and their works uplift you instead of numb you and ultimately drag you down. And if you need a good book with a romantic element, go for a brownie like anything by the Bronte sisters over vacuous mommy porn. Think better of yourself than that. Do better for yourself than that. You're worth it.

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