In elementary school, I hid my favorite library book among the stacks so no one else could check it out. It was years before I realized this was a tad rebellious. These were the days before Amazon and big box bookstores. Purchasing books wasn’t commonplace. I don’t recall our family buying books other than from the Scholastic Book Fair or maybe at Roses when my mom wanted a Danielle Steel novel for a beach trip.
What book was so magical I wanted it readily available for checkout? What book was so dear to my heart I read it innumerable times during third and fourth grades? It was “A Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the story of young Sara Crewe, who moves from wealth to poverty and back again while navigating the personalities and challenges of a prestigious London boarding school when her single father is away at war. Who knows why a little girl in the 1980s was obsessed with a book published in 1905. But each time I opened that book, I was immersed in Sara’s world, the images and scenes coming alive in my mind. I was also inspired by Sara’s courage, optimism and ingenuity.
Around this same time, I remember being sick and missing school for several days in a row. My parents weren’t able to stay out of work, so I passed the time reading the “Little House on the Prairie” series. My mom was a librarian at the nearby primary school, so she would come home at lunch and check on me. Each day when she popped in, I was curled under a blanket reading about Laura Ingalls and her family. Again, why was a young girl in the 1980s fascinated with pioneer life?
I could go on and on about books, authors, and series that have moved and inspired me through the years, but all of those stories and memories have a central theme in common.
Books are powerful.
I mentioned in a previous column that I enjoy reading the books my kids are reading for school. Most of the time, they are classic novels, and if they’re not, I trust the teachers’ recommendations. If it’s assigned for a class, I have faith the book will leave an impact. I read “The Alchemist” with my older son toward the end of the summer, and I just finished reading “Lord of the Flies” with my younger son. I’ve read a lot of classics, but I’ve never read “Lord of the Flies” in its entirety. Reading the same books as my teenage sons is not only enriching, but it opens doors for conversation and connection.
While any type of reading is good for the brain, fiction is beneficial on a deeper level. Nonfiction can quickly dispense information and broaden our horizons, but fiction teaches us how to be human. It engages our brains and hearts deeply, models empathy, and demonstrates social norms. In fact, fictional stories serve as a type of simulation. We step inside worlds, relationships, conversations, and inner thoughts and learn from them without experiencing the situations ourselves. Numerous studies have compared fiction reading to meditation in the way it moves the brain and nervous system to a flow state.
Influencer culture has propelled treatments, supplements, shots, pills, exercises, and diets to the forefront as ways to feel better, happier, and younger, but one of the most overlooked remedies is completely free and always at our fingertips. I don’t need a study to tell me this. I feel it every day when I make the time to read.
A 2025 study from the University of Florida and University College London found that daily reading for pleasure in the United States has declined by more than 40% over the last two decades. This is a travesty, but we can collectively shift the pendulum. Sometimes making a difference or resistance isn’t loud or complicated. It’s simply tuning out the noise of the world, putting away the devices, and opening a good book.
(Susanna Shetley is a writer and editor who lives in Waynesville. susanna.b@smokymountainnews.com.)