A Quote by Francois Fenelon

If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading I would spurn them all. — © Francois Fenelon
If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading I would spurn them all.
With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own.
What would I do with starry crowns except to cast them at His feet?
But it's true, kingdoms and crowns, a God who came down to find you. It's true, angels on high sing through the night, Alleluia.
The effect of every burden laid down is to leave us relieved; and when the soul has laid down that of its faults at the feet of God, it feels as though it had wings.
Think about reading: Today, parents would love it if their kids read books more because the parents understand the books. Just over 100 years ago, parents were upset because their kids were reading dime-store novels. Parents would say, "I don't want you inside reading anymore. Get outside and play." I guarantee you, in 50 years or so, parents are going to say, "You're not going outside to play until you finish that video game."
It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they come from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them - with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all the reading I could give them.
My platform has been to reach reluctant readers. And one of the best ways I found to motivate them is to connect them with reading that interests them, to expand the definition of reading to include humor, science fiction/fantasy, nonfiction, graphic novels, wordless books, audio books and comic books.
When Mats came in the evenings, they would drink tea in the kitchen while reading their books and talking about them. If Katri came in, they were quiet and waited for her to leave. The back door would close, and Katri would have gone. “Does your sister read our books?” Anna wanted to know. “No. She reads literature.
So often we think, well, kids learn to read at school, I don't have to be responsible for that. But in fact they learn to love reading at home, and therefore it's really important that we as parents preserve the joy of reading by supporting them and reading things that speak to their hearts, books that they love.
My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child’s love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian “improving” literature. You’ll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant.
Books are what you step on to take you to a higher shelf. The higher your stack of books, the higher the shelf you can reach. Want to reach higher? Stack some more books under your feet! Reading is what brings us to new knowledge. It opens new doors. It helps us understand mysteries. It lets us hear from successful people. Reading is what takes us down the road in our journey. Everything you need for a better future and success has already been written.
Think about the books that you were reading at a certain crisis in your life, what you were reading, and that's because you needed them to nourish your alma.
Every generation likes to think that children don't read as much as they used to when they were young! You listen to some adults saying they were going around reading 'Ulysses' when they were seven or eight! I think children are voracious readers if you give them the right books and if you make those books accessible to them.
When we started reading books to Raffi, I included some Russian ones. A friend had handed down a beautiful book of Daniil Kharms poems for children; they were not nonsense verse, but they were pretty close, and Raffi enjoyed them.
More and more books are published every year. If people were not reading them, they wouldn't be published. We are in a different moment. We are now reading electronic books or whatever else, but people are still reading, and people still need stories.
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