Reading Like A Kid Again
Do you remember the time where everything was so much more simple and fun? When adventure waited behind every corner?
If you weren’t dumped in front of a TV all the time, you also sure remember the wonders books held when you were a child. So many stories to choose from, beautifully illustrated, and listening intently to people reading to you.
But how can you revive the magic that happened whenever you opened a book as a kid? Even if you are a keen reader, it’s just not the same anymore, right? Well, channel your inner child and travel back in time by applying some of the following tips.
Blanket (Forts)
One of the exciting things as a kid was, for sure, defying your parents when it came to the little, but for you very important things. Revive this feeling by staying up past your “bedtime” to huddle under your blanket, with a flashlight (or an e-reader with background lightning), ad simply read. You are breaking the rules, being a little rebel!
Or, even better, build a blanket fort with your friends or s/o, or a hide away for yourself. By shutting out the outside world, books are given the opportunity to fully unfold their magic. You are in your own world, you own realm, and here, you can do what you want!
Illustrated Books
Yes, “adult” books can have illustrations as well. Even though it’s a feature mostly children’s books are known for. Sure, we love the written word, yet looking at pictures and illustrations is just as nice. Those visual aids help us to get more involved with the stories, or explain certain matters.
Neat examples include Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, Patrick Rothfuss’ The Slow Regard of Silent Things, or the novels by Walter Moers.
Activity Books
As a kid, books that encouraged you to actively do something have been a blast. No matter if it contained sports and exercises, collecting plants or bugs, or anything you can imagine, being actively part of your book was great, wasn’t it? And why should this change? Flee the stress of your job or daily life with a book that gets you engaged n certain activities.
A special kind of these books are the activity books by Keri Smith. Here, the goal wasn’t only to get up and out, but also to do things you were usually not allowed or too shy to do to a book: Draw in it, rip it apart, leave it in the rain, wreck it, and destroy it. Yes, for once this is allowed!
Sharing
You read a good book that blew your mind or had you thinking about certain things for a long time? Then share it! In school, there was Show and Tell or Book Reports, so why not help people to find a good book this way. Blog about your experiences, tweet about the last book you read, or engage in discussions with fans, critics, and other readers in forums and on platforms like Goodreads.
Comics
Comics are for children? Good! To feel young again, why not engage in a story that lives through pictures rather than text once? It doesn’t matter if you enjoy some funny or punny comic strips or the good old DC and Marvel superhero comics. Furthermore, there are comics and graphic novels with a more serious undertone, providing more “mature” topics of struggle, history, analogies, or daily life.
An intriguing example for the latter is the historically motivated graphic novel series Maus by Art Spiegelman, in which the author tells the story of his Polish-Jewish father during the Holocaust.
Get creative!
What do you do when you are done with a book? You put it aside and decide which one you want to read next. But stop! Just because you read the last page doesn’t mean that the book has to be over!
Someone has poured their creativity and imagination onto the pages, now it’s your time to continue the process. Write, draw, paint. or just sit back and let your imagination run free. It doesn’t happen seldom that we grow attached to characters in a book, or would see things changed or different than how they happened. Now it’s your time to make these thoughts – kind of – reality!
