Day to Read 2009

January 8, 2009.

Please mark your calendar.

Because, again, I'm asking you a favor.

A year ago I asked folks to take the time they would blog and read something on paper instead. A book, a magazine, a pamphlet, the newspaper. Anything printed.

Why did I do this last year?

Because according to a report released last year reading books is linked to civic engagement. This National Endowment for the Arts reports that young folks aren't reading like they used to. Get this:

• only 30% of 13-year-olds read almost every day


• the number of 17-year-olds who never read for pleasure increased from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004 - that is 1 in 5 kids don't read for fun


• Almost half of Americans between ages 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure


• The average person between ages 15 and 24 spends 2 to 2 1/2 hours a day watching TV and 7 minutes reading

According to Diane Gioia, the Chair of the NEA,

"The poorest Americans who read did twice as much volunteering and charity work as the richest who did not read. The habit of regular reading awakens something inside a person that makes him or her take their own life more seriously and at the same time develops the sense that other people's lives are real."

A year later, that quote still gives me chills. It shows that reading can transcend poverty, help people think beyond themselves.

That is why I'm asking folks, myself included, to take time one day in January to stop blogging - for the entire day or part of the day - and use the blogging time to read. Last year over 100 folks got in touch with me to say they were suspending blogging for the day to read.

So read a book. A magazine. A newspaper. Take the button and please paste it in a post as well as your sidebar (link back to http://denyingsoccermom.blogspot.com/2008/12/day-to-read-2009.html). Write about this. About what books, magazines, newspapers mean to you. Write a couple of posts about writings that have taken you to another place.

Then Thursday, January 8, 2009 turn off your computer and read. Then on Friday, January 9th, write a bit about what you read.

Thank you. Again.