If one had the power to give a child a single gift but no other, the gift to choose would be a love of reading. That is a gift which incomparably combines immense usefulness with life-long access to intellectual stimulation, emotional delights, spiritual inspiration and unceasing entertainment. The usefulness comes in the huge head-start a love of reading gives a child in his or her education. A child who loves reading is going to learn faster and better than his or her peers who do not and is going to be able to retain and organize and express what is learnt much more usefully and with infinitely more effect than those whose minds are closed to books. I guarantee – all the top
