As it is National Non-Fiction Day this Thursday I have decided to dedicate the whole week to non-fiction.
As a school librarian, I am always encouraging students to read non-fiction for leisure if that is what they enjoy; after all, who is to say that fiction reading is more worthy? What I am interested in is to see my students engaged in reading and enjoying it, full stop.
As a mother to an 8 year-old boy who has lately discovered the Guinness Book of Records and is always thirsty for facts, I am always looking for good quality books he will be interested in. He loves Horrible Histories, and enjoys anything published by Dorling Kindersley.
Yet, I never usually read non-fiction myself! I have always been a fiction reader, and have never felt the need to look elsewhere. For me reading has always been about escapism, and I could only find this in fiction. But being involved in organising the day as part as my FCBG committee work has helped me reassess my attitude to non-fiction. There is a lot of enjoyment to be found in reading non-fiction; it is just a very different experience from reading fiction, but one I am willing to embrace! So I shall try to read and review one non-fiction book a month from now on. That’s my challenge!
