Book day is celebrated every year on 23rd April; marking the death anniversary of William Shakespeare, one of the greatest writers that not only England, but the whole world has ever known.
It is organized every year by UNESCO, to promote reading habits and remind people that books are often taken for granted.
This year, the theme for World Book Day was dressing up as your favorite characters from any book.
You can only imagine how many people dressed up! There were loads of people dressed up as fictional characters from their respective books and novels.
Book Day also represents the art of writing. By writing, I don’t mean writing I don’t mean ‘jotting down a few egregious lines and calling it a story’.
In order to write a story, we need to think of a plot; where the story takes place; the main characters; the antagonist and a lot more.
Writing a proper story isn’t as simple as some people might say, it requires a vast vocabulary, a mild imagination, and a knack for writing ‘through characters’ which you can easily acquire through reading novels.
Although some people are born with flair for writing stories, that doesn’t mean that those who aren’t, can acquire it. If you want to attempt to write a novel, try writing some short stories or paragraphs first; this helps to polish our technique of writing.
It is often said, “Books let you travel without moving your feet.”
Books, they truly take us on a trip throughout the world.
When we read any story, we go through the emotions that the characters are experiencing.
Our hearts feel joy for the protagonists and ache for them as well. We are constantly rooting for our favorite characters and cursing the protagonist or as we like to call it, “villain”.
These days classic books are fading away more and more, people like to read these new “futuristic books”, that DO NOT represent the true and deep meaning of reading.
Books that are popular among youths today, act very little on the reading capability. That doesn’t mean that reading them is wrong, but they don’t exactly enrich our vocabulary or anything.
Classics such as Little Women, David Copperfield, Moby Dick (and many more) were bestsellers at the time they were first published, although their plot is quite simple, the flair for writing that they’re authors had made the books a million times better.
Authors such as Jane Austen, Tolkien, JK Rowling, Charles Dickens and many more have changed the face of writing.
The story of how these authors write their books is a story itself.
Joanne Kathleen Rowling stated that while she was secretly writing her “world sweeping novel” Harry Potter, she lost her mother; Which led to her sharing some of her own grief with the protagonist “Harry”, who she made an orphan later on.
She used her own emotions into writing the book and made it much more delightful in reading.
This goes to show much work and dedication an author puts into their books & stories.
We should be inspired by these wondrous authors whose minds worked in such a brilliant way that they managed to change our way of thinking.
One of the main reasons Book Day is organized is to encourage people to read; although it may not look like it, hardly any youths today “like” reading.
In recent studies, it proves that they would much rather spend their time with devices.
So, Book Day doesn’t just mean “read a few magazines and get it over with”, it encourages us to remember all those great authors; who dedicated their lives to the delicate art of writing, and were extremely often, underestimated.
And as Shakespeare’s once said,
“We Know What We Are, But Not Know What We May Be.”
By NANDINI PAWAR, Haridwar, Uttarakhand
