Dear Reader,

I’m so happy to finally receive my copy of this book by Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick, Velocity of Being..Letters to a Young Reader.  It didn’t disappoint!..121 letters from writers, scientists, philosophers, artists and inspiring humans to children about why they read.    Each paired with an original illustration by an artist, illustrator or graphic artist.    It’s going to be so wonderful to slowly read these.  (And to the grandchildren)   An 8 year labor of love by the author of the always very interesting blog “Brain Pickings” one can subscribe to… she grew up in Communist Bulgaria and now lives in NYC …all the proceeds of this book go to the NY public library.    Maria always has the best recommendations for children’s books near Christmas time.   You can read more and see lots of illustrations on the link above…….I chose this page as I know this Seattle Artist, Julie Paschkis, but not the writer, Sarah Lewis who is a professor at Harvard University.  there was a blank part so I added the cover of the book...sort of balances the composition? 


Dear Reader is also the name of the game my son worked on for the new Apple Arcade…so it’s hard not to connect the two here. :-)    I’m getting addicted to the game the more I find out about it…it’s very clever and complicated and we get to read great literature!  and as much as you like!   and do puzzles!   I think it has very little to do with one’s memory of the particular old classic books on it, or even if one has read them at all, although it's a help, and a lot to do with words and sentence structure…(I’m currently reading Wuthering Heights). but I do think you have to like doing a GAME on your phone or ipad or Apple TV-(don’t recommend the tv…too hard to use the remote.)   I think it’s very fun.  It's all about reading books, dear reader!  What could be better.