The Limits of a Reader’s Imagination
Reading, they say, is one of the clearest signs of advanced development in early childhood. It’s not universal, of course, but generally speaking, a child who reads is more likely to have stronger comprehension skills, a willingness to be introduced to new ideas, and a higher level of general curiosity that naturally fosters diverse perspectives and empathy.
My sisters, who are both raising toddlers, love to ask me how I became such an avid reader as a child. Did my mother do something very right or very wrong? Did she spend day and night reading to me? Did she fill my room with books? Did she shape and mold me into a pro reader? Negative to all. I do not know, I was just born like that.
I have always been the poster child when it came to reading. As far back as I can remember, I was constantly engrossed in a book. I used to read in the back seat of the car on the verge of throwing up. It never deterred me. I would complain about the nausea and then refuse to put the book down.
My favourite place to visit was the library with my mom, and if I got really lucky, chapters. My god I loved chapters. Love. I still love chapters (now indigo). My mom had a specific tote bag she saved for our library trips - it was a canvas bag with a sunflower that one of my very much older (as in 25 years) cousins had painted on. This library was beautiful. There were cherry trees planted around the roundabout out front and a gazebo-like children’s reading area that hosted reading nights I was always too shy to attend. The smell of the library was like a well-greased elevator, and I still remember it vividly to this day. As soon as we entered, my mom would head to the language section to peruse korean literature and I would head to the young adults area. There were 4 swivel bookcases that held chapter books and paperbacks, stocked with the geronimo stiltons, the magic treehouses, the boxcar childrens, and so on. With utmost confidence, I can tell you I have read nearly every single series and standalone book in the young adult section of this library. So much so that I, as a born atheist, started exploring the religious sections because my mother, who is full of empathy, intelligence, and all-around goodness, thought it would be beneficial for me to understand different perspectives and stories. And so I read the children’s versions of the literal coming of jesus and the five pillars of islam with glee. I enjoyed the stories and the illustrations.
I do not think I ever touched the computers.
I haven’t been to this library in over 10 years. Instead, I started buying books or flat-out stopped reading. Although, never did I lose my flair for books, as every year or so I would go through an intensive reading phase lasting about a month, and then it would die down until the coming year.
5 years ago, we sold my childhood home. We packed nine full-sized boxes filled to the brim with books. There was harry potter (both the korean and english versions), lord of the rings, narnia, percy jackson, divergent, mortal instruments, the literal entire geronimo stilton series, and all of twilight books to name a few - and of course, stacks and stacks of childrens books. My favourite was the robert munsch series, as was everyone else’s I’m sure. Books I can’t even remember reading made up a good half of those boxes, but I did, I read them all. Every single page. Some twice, thrice, maybe a fourth time.
I hated movies. Until I turned 20 ish I had never seen a single disney movie, any of the movies derived from the series listed above, and nary a classic film such as titanic. But I did read all the books. Probably before I even turned 14, for that matter.
I watched a harry potter film for the first time when I was 22, over 10 years after I had finished reading the series.
I recently got myself a library card in hopes of rekindling some of these memories, both in relation to my mother and for reading itself. My mom never forced me to read a book ever. If anything, it was quite the opposite. There were countless nights where she would fall asleep while reading me a bed time story, and I would shake her awake and force her to keep going. My angel mother. I don’t know how to distill this into a packaged blog post for my sisters and new parents alike on how to mold their kids to become strong readers and thinkers.
All of this to say, I believe my penchant for reading was strongly guided by the freedom of imagination. The minute I begin reading fiction, I conjure up settings in my mind that fit my presumptions of the characters, their lives, and their environments, heavily shaped by my own desires and inclinations. While movies spoon feed you the world building, books force you to take your lived experience, memories, and dispositions and apply them to entire worlds, minds, and problems. For me, it gave me the freedom to create universes tailored to me, whether in fantasy, mystery, or poetry.
Upon reflection, my propensity for books over movies seems to explain my tendency to chase unattainably romanticized, literally conjured up, fictional experiences. I have these crystal clear visions of what I want my life to look like, and not from a macro scale like money, well-being, and family. I’m talking true slices of life, like what it would feel like to walk down a particular street, how I would feel sitting at a desk, or my hypothetical fleeting thoughts while staring out a window. I’ve tried so hard to recreate these imaginary moments in real life by curating spaces that foster emotion and warmth, the way books do by describing minute details of a particular setting for the reader. It’s a curse and a blessing, the way words let you build entire worlds out of nothing. Reading has always given me the freedom to craft scenes so precisely tailored to what I desire, and to the way I move through life, that they become almost too perfect to replicate.
Where movies hand you a fully assembled world, books give you infinite room. And with that freedom, it’s easy to dream up environments that fit so neatly with your own longings that reality can’t quite measure up. In some ways, growing up as an avid reader made it harder for me to stay grounded. The romanticized slices of life I carried with me became reference points I couldn’t shake. Movies show you what someone else has imagined, books let you imagine exactly what you wish existed. And sometimes, living with that level of possibility makes the real world feel just a little too limited.