From pages to places, history lessons observed

Although I’ve never been able to fully comprehend why some people would hate reading, I know there are people out there who do. Actually, some of my closest friends are these people.  

But I know there are times when they do read, because there are times when we all have to read.

No, I’m not talking about being so enthralled in a book you can’t put it down. I’m talking about reading for class or, more specifically, reading those heavy high school history textbooks.

I don’t know how many times I read about the Blitz in London during World War II. Sometimes it was pages in the textbook and other times maybe just a paragraph, but it was always just in passing before the lessons about Pearl Harbor.

Yet those textbook pages were my preparation for seeing the real thing. I’ve seen dents in buildings damaged by the bombs and churches that were blown away with only the steeples remaining. And that’s only walking around London.

There are also the museums. After all the WWII books I’ve read — and there have been a lot — it wasn’t until this summer that I saw a Star of David patch on display. Within seconds, all the people from the stories raced back into my mind.

Gerda Weissmann Klein. Anne Frank. Elie Wiesel.

The words from the pages of their books seemed to spring to life, and this feeling continued no matter the topic. If I saw something I had read about before, I was instantly in awe. Seeing it was way better than reading about it.

It was like living in a history book, and I loved it. Each day revealed something different to learn about.

But without the books I had read, I wouldn’t have known so much about the places around me. Even though we don’t all have the opportunity to travel to the places we want to learn about, we can still see them when we open a book.

Books bring us in for a closer look and provide background. So next time you complain about that heavy textbook, try to pretend you are there — and then go.

Trust me, it will be so much better than text on a page.