Reading helps us build connections, learn and grow. Check out our testimonials to learn how our Healing Through Literacy syllabus in Utah County, Utah, has helped some of our friends! Please feel free to contact Reach Out online to find out more and learn how you can join us.
Reading good books has had a great influence on me because I experience things in books that I don't experience in my life, and I learn from them. A good honest character with integrity really resonates with me and I want to become like them. On the other hand, the foolish people that I read about I learn from as well. I learn not to be like them.
– Rebecca, age 53
Reading books with courageous characters expands our minds for what is possible for us, literally helping our brains see to believe. When I read about people who were honest, brave, successful, determined, kind, innovative, spiritual, and authentic, it helps me believe in myself a little more, encouraging me to make similar decisions in my life. Good books have given me the confidence and knowledge that I truly am the creator of my life, the author of my own story.
- Rebecca, age 25
Growing up my dad would read books to me as often as he could. My siblings and I would gather around as he would read old classics, new bestsellers, and Newbery Award winners. This instilled in me a love for learning and reading. During this time, and after as I read more by myself, I learned more about how to think critically as the characters made choices, both bad and good. I also learned more about ethical issues and my understanding grew concerning how to lead a more fulfilled life.
– Joseph, age 22
Reading good books helps me to learn from characters mistakes. I remember one book specifically totally changed my perceptions on life for the better. It changed how I acted towards my family, and it changed how I thought about people. I stopped thinking negatively about others, and instead started to put myself in their shoes. This not only made me a better person, but made me less anxious to be in the outside world.
Stephen, age 26
I love reading! Finding a good book is like finding a new friend. They teach you new ideas and traits that make a difference. I find that the way characters change in books, for good, helps me want to change and be better. They teach me different life skills that I want to try out. I have also found that during different stages of life a book can teach me different things.
- Madeline, age 23
Benjamin Franklin taught me about the importance of personal development. Hugo taught me the power of love and mercy. Tolstoy showed me what it means to be truly good. Daniel Brown told me how to forget myself in something greater. Dickens showed me what repentance and forgiveness and look like!
- Jacob, age 26
Since I’ve read books for most of my life, I tend to get immersed in their world. I feel like I’m the main character and it mentally changes my perspective. Which is why it’s important to read good books because they teach me how to have their good habits and skills but from the perspective of each character.
- Lizzy, age 19
Reading books it perhaps the most significant part of my story of character development. I think this is because when you read a book you are essentially reviewing the lives of its characters. And also reviewing the life and thoughts of its author. Not only do you get to see how the world looks to someone else, but you get to explore that world in exciting and unexpected ways. Regardless of whether or not you realize it, reading good books will help you develop the skill you will need to navigate your own world and your own world view. Reading books is the 1# thing I would suggest to anyone wanting to strengthen and develop that part of their minds.
- Brigham, age 19
Hannah : I don't know if it's the same way for everyone, but stories help me remember important lessons. For example, someone could say that it is important to stand for what you believe is right, and I'd probably agree and then stop thinking about it. But hearing the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego brings it to life, and every time I think of that story it reminds me again of their example. Even in stories where characters are fictional, it helps to see others facing challenges and how they overcame them.
- Hannah, age 21
I recently finished reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom and it really helped me with somethings I was dealing with to hear how she remembered kindness and forgiveness in her awful circumstances and how her sister brightened and brought joy to others lives.
- Emily, age 38
Reading good books has affected my character and decision-making skills in momentous, personal and family life-altering ways. I had a very hard time learning to read. A fourth grade teacher ignited a life-long passion for reading good books when she read “James and the Giant Peach” by Roald Dahl out loud to our class daily after lunchtime. I found a copy of “The Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett in my grandma’s basement and was carried away to another world as I read it myself. My Mom nurtured faith and knowledge of truth during my early childhood years of belief and wonder reading a beautifully illustrated version of the Bible to me at bedtime. My 19 year old daughter recently “caught the flame” of transformational literature reading “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë. Reading good books allows you to learn from others and live a much better life that has been informed and influenced by a broader perspective of the lives of countless others across all cultures and time periods. You learn what they learn and become changed for the better vicariously experiencing and overcoming and impacting and suffering and living and losing and succeeding and failing and healing and mourning and celebrating with them. You observe patterns and timeless truths and ways of being that are universal and applicable. You gain motivation and hope and are able to cope and live a significantly more rich and deep and full and happy and meaningful and satisfying life.
- Michelle, age 53
Reading good book have impacted every aspect of my life because, at a young age, they gave me mentors to look up to who were good and virtuous. Even now, older, I reflect on those books every so often and compare myself to those hero’s and virtuous princesses I compared myself to back in the day. Watching the lifespan of these characters change helped me to have a vision of how to get out of trails and temptations and have given me the hope of what lies at the end of such struggles.
- Bridget, age 22
through reading books i’ve become a more empathetic person. when people in books make decisions i get to see their thought process and how it impacts the people around them so think about decisions i’m making more and possible outcomes and how they will affect me and other people. Watching how characters deal with the challenges in their life and how they overcome those things inspires me. if they can get through all the hard things then so can i.
- Mara, age 16