My Book and Heart Shall Never Part

I like how the film discussed why children's books were made. Today we read books to children for entertainment and enjoyment, but that is not how it has always been. Of course every story has a lesson, but that lesson is found through a character's adventure versus a single sentence pointing out the threat of falling down stairs. Most of the books for children written in the 18th century and discussed in the movie, however, were simply ways to formalize children. I think the formality of these books made them tools in disguise instead of toys. I'm probably belittling the importance of the lessons these books taught, but I've always been one to value exciting stories over common sense lessons about drinking hot tea. It is also interesting how Euro-American colonizers used the same techniques (literacy and thus books) to convert children into adults as they used to convert Native Americans into civilized people. It is sad to me that such a wonderful thing like literacy is used as a weapon of control by those who already possess the gift of reading and writing. This leads to the idea that literacy ends a child's childhood which is definitely an interesting concept. It is true. The more you read, the more you learn, the more developed your brain becomes, and the more adult like you become. In every story there is some piece of information or idea you have never thought of before. In every story there is a situation or experience you have never gone through before. In every story, no matter how trivial, there is some lesson to be learned. And it is the accumulation of lessons that lead to adulthood.