Kia Garriques

With midterm break now at an end, children and teens will be filing back into school to swap tales of their holiday antics. While many will have occupied their time with Halloween celebrations, others will have taken the opportunity to chill out and entertain themselves with a good book.

For many of them holidays are the only time of year they read a book and are often snorted at by other more well read people for not reading all year round. Why is this? Is it not better to read a really good book once or twice a year than not at all? Or is it just more fun to condemn people as being less intelligent for not reading all of the time?

Holidays are the perfect opportunity to encourage reading as there is plenty of time to relax and not feel that you are being self indulgent by reading a book. With students and school goers getting an overdue break from homework assignment, diving in to a book is a great way to make use of this extra time.

When they are at home teenagers have to contend with school work and ensuring that they spend enough time with their friends and family so it is easy to see why reading is not at the top of their lists so any opportunity that allows them to read should not be judged. They might not read again until next summer, which is a huge shame, but they should be applauded for reading a book in the first place. For some young people they can discover their favourite book on holiday and this ignites their passion to read more once they touch down back home.

If we are committed to getting more young people to read then we must not demonize any effort that they make to do so. Their holiday read may not lead to anything more but they have read one more book than before and that’s definitely a step in the right direction.