Peera didn’t like reading books.
All his friends knew it well, and so did his teacher. But that day, his teacher sent him to an old library at the school — a room hardly anyone visited anymore, since there was a beautiful new library in another building.
This old library smelled of dust and aging paper. Wooden shelves rose so high he couldn’t see the top, packed tight with books, many with spines so faded he couldn’t even read their titles.
Peera wandered around, looking at nothing in particular.
Then he heard a voice.
“What are you looking for?”
Peera spun around. No one was there.
“Down here,” the voice said again.
Peera looked down at a low shelf, where an old dark green book sat, its cover slightly damaged.
“Books can talk?” Peera blurted out before he could think.
“Every book here can,” the green book answered. “People just never ask.”
Peera sat down on the floor, eye to eye with the book. “So what can you talk about?”
“Whatever story I hold inside,” the book said, making a sound like pages turning. “I’m full of tales of an explorer in the deep jungle. Would you like to hear?”
Peera was quiet for a moment, then nodded.
The book began to tell its story, its voice faint but clear, about a young man lost in the forest, unable to find his way out for three days and three nights, until he found a small river that led him back home.
Peera listened, his mouth slightly open without realizing it.
“Then what happened?” he asked when the book paused.
“Open me and read,” the book said. “I can only tell you a little. The whole story is inside.”
Peera hesitated for a moment, then picked up the book and opened it.
He read until the light outside had faded, not realizing how much time had passed. When he closed the book, he felt as though he had just returned from the jungle himself.
“Did you like it?” the green book asked.
“I loved it,” Peera said honestly.
“Then come back tomorrow. There are many more of us who want to tell you our stories.”
Peera returned to the old library every day after that — one book a day, sometimes two. Books about the sea, about outer space, about ancient knights, about a girl who cared for wild animals.
By the end of the month, his teacher asked him why his essays had improved so much.
Peera thought of the old green book, and smiled.
“I made a new friend,” he answered simply.
And the old library was never lonely again.
Moral: Every book holds a whole world hidden inside, waiting for us to open it. The feeling we get from reading is unlike any other form of entertainment, because it happens within our very own imagination.
