The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

compelling writing. His writings can persuade virtually anyone to reconsider his or her theology: “Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.” 1 C. S. Lewis’s way with words is even more evident in his advice to novice authors: “Don’t use words too big for the subject,” he once wrote. “Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” 2

Apart from simple logic, the ability
to pen fiction is also useful. Even fan-
tasy can prove a point, and that which
doesn’t carry a message with it can still
touch our hearts in a rare and special
way. Suzanne Collins, author of the
best-selling Hunger Games trilogy—the
first of which became a feature film in
2012, provides us with an excellent illus-
tration of this fact. The Hunger Games
trilogy speaks volumes about sensitive
topics such as desensitization to vio-
lence, government control, and the trag-
ic casualties of war, but it does so amidst
a suspenseful plot. Even readers who are
uninterested in the books’ deeper mes-
sages quickly identify with protagonists
children in a bubble, isolated from phi-
losophies that would contradict their be-
liefs. In order for those beliefs to become
real, personal, and logical in the student’s
mind, the student must be confronted
with opposing viewpoints. A belief that
can’t hold up under pressure was never
really a belief at all.

Reading creates an environment in which our children can evaluate different beliefs through the lens of their personal worldviews. It exposes students to new

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portrayed by characters such as Katniss, Peeta, and Gale.

Reading books (and writing our own) also serves to challenge us at a personal level. Any educator, especially a homeschool mom or dad, hopes to build base foundations for their students’ way of thinking. Unfortunately, there is a danger in this—we can’t afford to train our

. . . A student’s love
for reading should
translate into a
hunger for writing.

ideas while allowing them to sift truth from lies and opinion from fact, a skill that will remain vital for an entire lifetime. We will always encounter novel attacks on what we believe—books, the Internet, the media, and our daily encounters with new and different people make sure of it. We need to realize not just where we stand, but also why. As our children grow to develop moral convictions, religious beliefs, and even the more lighthearted results of reading—their own dreams, their own stories flaring to life inside their minds— they will often find that they, too, want to voice their thoughts.

Reading leads to writing. Every gripping plot should stir the reader’s imagination with visions of his own great adventures. Every vivid character should awaken a desire to create one’s own illustrious heroes, terrifying villains, and rule-defying originals. Every influential argument should revive a desire to transfer one’s own convictions from pen to page. Everyone, regardless of age, has his own dreams. Writing is a way to realize those dreams, if only on the pages of a book. Some like to pretend as though they’ve grown out of fantasies, but the truth is, everyone has wild, seemingly