World of possibilities at Woodend Beach

Driving down the last stretch of Beach Rd, heading into Woodend Beach, just north of Kaiapoi, is one of my favourite stretches of road in New Zealand.

It’s not anything visual as such – it’s got your pre-requisite lines of pines and two lanes stretching towards the sand slope that opens up to the beach. No, it wasn’t how it looked. It was how I always felt, and still do, when I see it.

It was where we went back when summers were full of sunny days, and empty of responsibility.

It was where my grandparents lived, where my mother grew up, and where I really started my reading journey.

I was lucky that my grandfather was a reader. He tolerated, and encouraged, his fidgety grandson fossicking through his Readers Digest Condensed novels (and secretly reading his Australian Post magazines, but that’s a story for another day) and reading them while laid out in the sun for hours.

The world outside disappeared in those hours, the prickly edges of real-life troubles were banished to ‘’the real world’’ as I strode across Africa with Wilbur Smith, or navigated World War 2 with Sven Hassel. I learnt that there were worlds beyond the one I inhabited. From picking through those Readers Digest Condensed readers, then to Wilbur Smith, to Stephen King, Stephen Donaldson, and of course my hero Sir Terry Pratchett, I developed my love of words on the page.

My grandfather also understood the value of a good story, especially one told orally. The tales of his time as a navigator on bombers during WWII were my very own “Boys Own’’ adventure stories. Those summers were some of the best I ever spent.

Which brought me to contemplate whether those golden summer days spent reading are still part of the New Zealand holidays experience?

We know screens are the main weapon in the boredom battle these days, but with most Public libraries offering Summer Reading Programmes, Read NZ doing its awesome Summer Reading Challenge and the National Library and school libraries’ summer reading loans, there is no reason we can’t have books in hands, banishing the boredom, kids staying at home but travelling to worlds beyond ours, escaping

from whatever may be going on outside their four walls.

So, I throw the challenge out to all the readers out there. Become a ‘’Reading Role-Model’’.

Read in front of your family, your friends and tell them what you’re reading. Tell them of the worlds you’re traversing, the people you are meeting and encourage them to join you. Take them on the journey.

Reading is how we navigate the world every day.

Your phone requires reading, there’s street signs, maps, ads, the instructions on the rice risotto box that you have to fish out of the recycling three times to remind yourself how long it needs to be in the microwave. It’s exercise for our most

important muscle, the brain (yes, I know it’s not a muscle, go with it!)

It’s an escape from reality, or the chance to imagine a new one that you can see yourself in.

This summer, make space, make time, pick up that book and escape. If you can, take someone with you.

– Alan Dingley is the Te Awhi Rito Reading Ambassador. The National Library of New Zealand leads the Te Awhi Rito programme in partnership with Te Puna Foundation, Read New Zealand Te Pou Muramura, Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa and Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust Te Whare Waituhi Tamariki o Aotearoa.