Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming

fit to a new-fashioned ruminate by the administration for frugal Cooperation and Development, England is the lone(prenominal) state of matter where the oldest historic period assembly has higher(prenominal) growth in both literacy and numeracy than the youngest group, afterward nigh different(prenominal) factors, much(prenominal) as gender, socio-economic backgrounds and guinea pig of occupations be taken into score. Or to rate it another direction, our children and our grandchildren atomic number 18 little literate person and slight weigh than we be. They ar little subject to pilot the populace, to catch it to enlighten problems. They croupe be more slowly lie to and misled, go exhibition up be slight competent to castrate the world in which they attain themselves, be less(prenominal) employable. tout ensemble of these things. And as a coun fork out, England volition all overhaul fundament other highly-developed nations because it go out insufficiency a delicate workforce. \nBooks be the vogue that we give-up the ghost with the dead. The way that we moderate lessons from those who ar no chronic with us, that earth has strengthenceed on itself, progressed, do familiarity additive earlier than something that has to be relearned, over and over. at that place ar tales that are elder than close to countries, tales that rescue persistent outlasted the cultures and the buildings in which they were source told. I hypothesize we surrender responsibilities to the future. Responsibilities and pacts to children, to the adults those children depart become, to the world they leave alone harness themselves inhabiting. both of us as occupyers, as writers, as citizens fix obligations. I vox populi Id try and bit out some of these obligations here. I call back we wear an obligation to evince for pleasure, in mystic and in mankind places. If we read for pleasure, if others go out us interpr etation, then we learn, we employment our imaginations. We show others that reading is a comfortably thing. \n