AM I A PROLIFIC OR HABITUAL READER?

I consider that literature is something fundamental for the academic and intellectual development of any person. But being frank, I do not consider myself a reading person if what it refers to in reading large-scale literary works.

Many of us have not read a story since we were some youngsters, nor do we know how to define literature since during our stage in primary, secondary and high school education we do everything but we do not enjoy literature. According to the Royal Spanish Academy, literature is the art that uses a language as a means of expression, it is also a set of literary productions of a nation, an era or a genre.

In my opinion, I would define literature as the art of both oral and written expression that has had a noticeable course at all times. When we were in school we loved to read, I mean the stages of early childhood education and in the first years of primary education. That pleasure in reading is lost with the passing of the courses, where we are forced to read a novel or story without being able to enjoy it.

Our system fails, if your intention is to instill literature as many young people move away from the obligation of having to read a work just to examine it. Thanks to these actions that many teachers believe is appropriate, young people give up reading. We must change our mindset, in a way of thinking and working giving the child that tool that gives him the ability to dream and imagine, to escape for a moment immersed in history, that is literature, and not what we are forced to do . What we see today has me worried, because we see the continuous censorship suffered by the literature. It was in the media that a school in Barcelona censored works such as the Little Red Riding Hood or the sleeping beauty for being sexist. We continue to delimit the literature. We have to avoid giving that utility to stories. The stories are neither sexist, nor sexist, nor do we have to give them any purpose. Stories are stories, and only that. Children have to enjoy literature as it is, and not as we want. As Franz Kafka said, a book must be the ax that breaks the icy sea inside us. Although they have not taught us and we have not learned to enjoy reading, there is still time to resume reading and get that ax that breaks what we have inside us. That cannot be felt only by those who truly love and are passionate about reading.