The book - your best friend!

Daniela Giampaolo teacher of Italian language and literature

LifelongLearning

Programme COMENIUS

MULTILATERAL PROJECT

The rights of the reader

1.The right not to read

2.The right to skip

3.The right of not to finish a book

4.The right to read it again

5.The right to read anything

6.The right to mistake a book for real life

7.The right to read anywhere

8.The right to dip in

9.The right to read out loud

10.The right to be quiet

D. Pennac

The rights of the reader

1.The right not to read

2.The right to skip

3.The right of not to finish a book

4.The right to read it again

5.The right to read anything

6.The right to mistake a book for real life

7.The right to read anywhere

8.The right to dip in

9.The right to read out loud

10.The right to be quiet

D. Pennac

The book. White pages which can carry you into another reality. “ Free your mind. Let the world around you fade away into the vague”. This is how Italo Calvino introduces the reader to his novel “If in a winter night a traveler”.

Francis Bacon affirmed: “Don’t read just to contradict or confute, neither to believe or accept for granted not to find topics for chatting or conversation, but to weigh and evaluate”.

Whatever the book we read, it makes us grow up, it makes us want to know more and discover, it makes us critics and free to think and decide.Francesco Cantoro, Liceo Artistico “Bellisario – Misticoni”, Pescara, IV D

In the last few years teenagers don’t make friends easily with this alternative friend.

Many teenagers associate the book to weariness and boredom, perhaps because of school and of the different teachers who do not try to persuade them to familiarize with books. They oblige students to read, giving a test after the reading of a book

Of course, when a young boy or girl reads this kind of book, he/she feels freer and more thoughtless than when reading a book about philosophy.

I think to involve teenagers in the pleasure of reading they should start with less compelling books and they should be able to choose what to read.

This should lead them to the reading of more complex books finding them more involving. These teenagers as future parents will be able to make their children enthusiastic about books. Lorenzo Volpicella, Liceo Artistico “Bellisario – Misticoni”, Pescara, IV D

Daniel Pennac wrote“The verb read can’t stand the imperative form. It shares this aversion with some other verbs: “to love”…..”to dream”….Of course, you can always try. Come on, “Love me!” “Dream!” Read!” “Read! Come on, read, for good’s sake, I order you to read!” “ go up to your room and read!”

Results? Nothing. “reading is not an order: it is a natural step towards ourselves, it is a spontaneous thing and it leaves an emotion that no one else can imagine.

It is incredible what a great inheritance words can leave in our life.

I invite anyone to chose a book, a title that attracts you, read it care fully, seize the nuance of every sentences, and the harmony between the contents and the form: when you finish a book, you have lived 10, 100 or 1000 years more, our background is enriched and that book has helped us to grow up.

If we fell in love with it, we owe it to a dear person that we have read something so beautiful. And we will talk about it to that same person.Anna Basile, Liceo Artistico “Bellisario – Misticoni”, Pescara, IV D

In today’s “liquid” society as Zigmund Bauman defined it, there is no more space for tradition and for the ancient rhythm of reading but people prefer the comfort of modern means and the speed of computers. Of course, men and women read less because they have other things to look at or look for.

And further Gustave Flaubert said: “Don’t read like the children do just to have fun, don’t read like the ambitious do just to get an education. No, read to live.”

Serena Giannangelo, Liceo Artistico “Bellisario – Misticoni”, Pescara, IV D

In today’s “liquid” society as Zigmund Bauman defined it, there is no more space for tradition and for the ancient rhythm of reading but people prefer the comfort of modern means and the speed of computers.

Of course, men and women read less because they have other things to look at or look for.

From the Istat statistics, in 2012 only 46% of the Italians declared to have read at least one book in a year. In this percentage women have a higher rate with 51,9% and men only 39,7%.

The most virtuous readers are boys and girls aged between 11 and 17 (60,5%). Having parents who spend their free time reading can influence children.

72% of the children aged between 6 and 14 who have both parents reading read as well, against the 39% of those whose parents do not read.

The percentage of readers, more than 48% of the population aged 6 and more, is higher in the North and in the centre of Italy. In the south and on the islands people read less, in fact the percentage is lower: only 35%.

Reading allows us to travel to unknown and far away countries, in the present, in the past and in the future. Reading good books enriches the lives of people.

When reading a book other people’s experiences become ours, we can develop new ideas and thoughts. This power of reading can let us understand in a better way life and people; sometimes we seek refuge into books because we find in them a silent interlocutor, a real friend.

Adeo De Nicola, Liceo Artistico “Bellisario – Misticoni”, Pescara, IV D

Reading a book is like opening a big door, it is the simplest way of broadening your imagination and just like Francis de Croisset wrote: “reading a book is like a journey for those who cannot catch a train”.

I totally agree with his message because I think that reading is a universal language.

It speaks at the same time in the same way yet so differently.