Reading with a Purpose

My brother and I would come home from the library with a new stack of books every week during the summer.

I have enjoyed reading my whole life. I’m not the fastest reader, and there have been ups and downs to work around the busyness of life. But since elementary school, I have always loved reading. When you open a book you can escape to another world. A plot twist that leaves your jaw on the floor, the tears that you shed when you lose your favorite character, the times you feel like throwing the book across the room because that character keeps being an idiot...moments that bring you back for more.

As I have gotten older, I have started to look deeper into books. Now I’m not just looking for a fun book, but for something that has depth, something I can get lost in. And if I do it right, I can come out with something beautiful to carry with me.

The start of a shift

My younger years were filled with books and reading. Over the summer, we always went to the library and came home with a stack of books. In middle school, I fell in love with series like Harry Potter and Hunger Games. In high school, I fell off a little because life got so busy. I picked up again in college, and that's where the shift between reading for fun and reading with a purpose came.

When I read the Sunrise on the Reaping book, I absolutely loved it, and my social media was filled with posts related to it: fan edits, fan theories, and then people analyzing the book. I found people digging into more than just the story, but the depth in how all the books work together to tell a story.

I saw that Hunger Games was more than a book, but a series explaining concepts and pointing out flaws in society via story. Scholastic interviewed Suzanne Collins while promoting the release of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. They asked what made her come back to the world of Panem.

“Here's how it works now. I have two worlds, the Underland and Panem. I use both of them to explore elements of just war theory. When I find a related topic that I want to examine, then I look for the place it best fits.”

Plots with a Purpose

After digging into The Hunger Games world more purposefully, I took this mindset into everything I read. Not all authors are trying to show a deeper meaning behind their stories. But with stories that we remember, there is purpose in everything written.

Two characters can fall in love; that's sweet. But if they met at a time when they were both broken and beaten by their past, they begin to see the other person as a safe place that they cling to. When they grow together out of the mess of their lives, then that first kiss means more. A character may sacrifice themselves, which is nice. But, when the character has been arrogant and selfish their entire life, they meet a group that becomes family. They grow close, and the shield of arrogance starts to fall, and they sacrifice themself to keep their newfound family safe. That hits harder.

When we have stories with a purpose behind them, it makes them more engaging. There are stakes, there are heartbreaks, and there are trials and triumphs that are woven together through the whole story. If we can look and see in books how all these events happen to make this story beautiful, then we can take that and apply it to our lives.

When we experience something, it is more than just a moment; it is a culmination of the life before and ripples into the life after. If we look, we can find beauty in even the hardest times of our lives. Taking the time to look for purpose in books can help us find that in our own lives.

Compassion for Characters

Everyone has favorite characters. Whether you like them because they were funny, or because they did something you respected, or you related to them, we all have them.

We read the characters' stories, we see their lives play out. When we read, we feel emotion for the characters. If they feel hurt, we hurt with them. If they feel sad, we are sad with them. When they make mistakes, we cheer them on.

We see ourselves in these stories. You're not preparing your armies to go to war against an opposing kingdom, but you are in the midst of making a life-changing decision while you doubt and second-guess every move you make. You're most likely not off in a mansion trying to solve puzzle after puzzle, but you are trying to figure out how to balance all the parts of your life.

There are parts of the characters we connect with. When we take this connection to characters in books and move outside the realm of books or even ourselves, we can see compassion for other people.

When you see stories of characters in books, you see their whole story. You know why they do what they

do, but you don’t get to see that for other people. Other people have their own story that you don’t get to see. So when you are feeling what our characters feel, giving them grace for mistakes, and cheering them on, you can carry that into other people.

Someone might say something snarky that makes you mad, but they are at the point in their story where all hope is lost, and it is a fight to make it through another step. Someone might be acting like a self-entitled jerk, but they are at the start of their story, starting their character growth to overcome what their backstory has made them to be.

Now, people aren't characters in a book, but when you see people, you can remember the stories and all the experiences characters grow through, and how you relate to that, you can find compassion for other people around us.

Reading Gives Joy

It is easy to become caught up in analyzing parts in books. It can easily feel like homework when you’re doing it all the time. It’s important to remember that books are still for entertainment. Books sweep you away into a fictional world away from the craziness and unpredictability of our world. At the beginning of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis writes a dedication, and in it, he says

... some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again…

We all need to find whimsy and joy to brighten up the scary parts of our lives.

My favorite books are the ones where I am sucked into more than a story, but a world. Books that are well thought out, planned, and purposeful, when I can tell that the author loved what they were creating, and crafted every piece perfectly. These are the stories we look for. We search for books we can lose ourselves in the world, and are consumed with the beauty of the story.

If we are intentional about finding these in books, then we can find them in our lives. When we look at our lives and how our stories have shaped us, we can find beauty in our lives in the hard times. When we look at characters and feel for them and cheer for them, we can apply that to others around us. After all, everyone has a story. When we look for fun stories to make us smile and make us happy, we can search for the joy in life. When we start looking at the beauty in the stories we read, we can find the beauty of our lives.