This morning I woke to what I believe is a horrendous crime. A book tossed outside amongst the debris.

How could this be? Who put this here? A child I assume.

I sit shocked at how my parenting has dwindled. How did my world get so busy that I have obviously not expressed clearly enough to one of my children how precious books are, and pass on the knowledge that these forms of art are someone’s tireless effort creating something to offer back to the world? Instead this work of art has been left abandoned & outcast as rubble & mistaken as of no importance.

It had not been there long enough for its pages to be ruined, but still there it lay next to Jules’s work boots & grass clippings that had blown back upon the veranda. Of course all the minors of the household are now absent in this moment, at friends houses, the skate park or the beach. I on the hand will have to dwell & stew on this act of terrorism until they return.

My choice of words might harsh, but so they should be. Have we forgotten the essence of what words written on paper and presenting them in the form of a book mean. When television, computers, iPods, iPhones, iPads and all of the other technology under the sun did not take over our ability to flick through pages of a book and drift into a world that appeared created just for us.

I sat there and looked at the book’s surroundings, lying where it did, and thought, is this the perfect metaphor for what is to lay ahead for the generations to come & the conditioning that now takes place by the media world.

Kindle has replaced the flicking of paper, some will say saving our trees. But what good is an imagination without being able to use as many senses as possible, the feel of the paper & the smell of its print. There is nothing more surreal then a paper book. It’s as though you are invited to be a part of a secret that no one has yet discovered and each time you turn a page you uncover something new.

Nowadays, we can flick a switch & chose our font or a preferred shade for our eyes. It saddens me that we are losing something so valuable. I personally don’t give birthday cards to my children each year; instead I chose to give books with inscriptions in them. Yet, each year I see their interest dwindle. The importance and great experience of reading, has been replaced by an electronic device.

I must appear hypercritical since it is I who blog on the internet as I am too taken along the wave of out with the old in with the new. I will however, never give up on the memories of a childhood filled with stories and books that you can hold.

I love to read. I love that you can put a book down and there it waits like a special friend for your return. How can we collectively instil the desire to read from a book to the generations to come, yet let technology have its place?

Will one day we see defendants in a court room swearing on an iPad version of the bible instead of the book itself. Where will this all end? It terrifies me to think that one day you might no longer be able to hold these magnificent art forms in your hands & stroll through the vibrancies of their pages.

My message, value the pages you own. Read to your children. I was an advocate of reading and even myself I have let that slip with my own children over the years. The proof was the book cast aside. The world of technology is rapidly moving and presenting us with undeniably low cost business management applications, but don’t let it rob us of the culture of reading from a book.

Food for thought!