Reading fiction has some wonderful benefits.
You can use Blinkist or ChatGPT to summarise non-fiction and understand the key messages (at the cost of nuance). But fiction? Sure, you can summarise fiction books, but that’s like eating dehydrated beer — all the elements are there, but none of the joy. Like the kidnapped children from His Dark Materials, they are physically present, but soulless.
That’s because reading fiction sparks your imagination. It’s active consumption.
I love watching movies, but they are passive to the degree that the imagination is done upfront. In effect, you’re witnessing someone else’s imagination on display.
Reading admittedly does something similar (you witness the writer’s imagination in words) but your mind does the work of visualising it. And even better, the visuals are uniquely yours.
I wonder whether the higher the art form, the more active the consumption of the media. After all, some art exhibitions really make you think. Some make you think, why am I here?
‘It’s not as good as the book’
Considering the hundreds of millions that are poured into movies in an attempt to suspend our disbelief, it’s worth revisiting the value we place on the humble novel.
‘It’s not as good as the book’ has become the lay-critic’s cliché. Non-reading movie-goers might dismiss this as pretentious. But while there are exceptions, even a movie masterpiece like The Lord of the Rings still pales in comparison to the book.
The benefits for children
My vision for Storygram is to help children discover the lifelong joy of reading fiction. That’s why I’m writing about it — to raise awareness of the issue, the benefits, and to learn what the problems so I can develop meaningful solutions with the help of others.
That’s worth it for the joy I know fiction can bring, but there’s so much more. The use of imagination in reading fiction is akin to creative play — a hybrid of entertainment and unstructured lessons. Children tease these lessons out for themselves while reading, picking up hints that contribute to their understanding of life:
By constantly formulating and reformulating their expectations of what might happen in a story, young readers practice mental flexibility, an openness to new situations and interpretations and problem-solving.1
Reading fiction is one of the most important and engaging acts of imagination I can think of. It troubles me to consider children who only consume visual media that does the work of imagining for them, while missing out on the joy and benefits of opening their minds with great stories.
Sturm, B. (2013). Bibliocreativity: how books and stories develop creativity. In Jami Jones and Lori Flint (Eds.), The Creative Imperative: School
Librarians and Teachers Cultivating Curiosity Together. (pp. 203-214)
Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO.
I believe the first fiction I read was “Call of the Wild” by Jack London. I was 7 and yes, I read under the blanket with my “Combat” flashlight.
That was 63 years ago and I still read everyday.