Writing Prompt: Getting Books

In “Getting Books,” Amy Hassinger watches her children’s growing interest in books and reflects on how books have influenced her life. While her seven-month-old son is just discovering the delight of seeing images on a page and chewing on books’ corners, her five-year-old daughter is “tasting their ideas, swallowing and digesting their stories. She’s getting books now, what a multiplicity they represent, what beauty and joy and understanding and peace they offer, and also what violence and what unutterable sadness. Already, books are a crucial part of her becoming; already, they are rearranging her reality, word by word.”

Prompt: Reflect on your experience with books. How have they influenced you — in general or more specifically as a writer? What are your favorite books and how have their words rearranged your reality?