“A good book has no ending.”
~R.D. Cumming

A good book has no ending because it is either a catalyst for change, an inspiration for life, or a starting point in a journey. Books change lives.

I remember just a couple of things about my life is sixth grade. One was the daily writing assignments our teacher gave us. She said we could write on any topic we wanted.

While most children wrote about something different every day, I chose to write a book. As a 12 year old child I was inspired by the book Stuart Little by E. B. White and The Borrowers by Mary Norton. They became the inspiration for my book. I wrote a book about children who had lost their parents, but whom were roughly the same size of Stuart Little.

Day in and day out I wrote of their adventures. They traveled the world.

What I knew of the world thus far was pretty much taken from, you guessed it, books.  Books had become the backdrop for my understanding of the world. They became the inspiration for one chapter after another. They were without ending because they inspired a new chapter, in a new writers life.

By the time I was done I had written many chapters and proudly handed them in to my teacher. I couldn’t wait to take them home to show my parents, but first they had to be graded.

The last day of school arrived, and the teacher handed back everyone’s work. I waited anxiously. I was never so excited to receive a homework assignment back in my life.

But my name was never called.

My book wasn’t among the work returned that day. When I asked about it she said she must have left it at home, but not worry she would mail it to me. My precious book never arrived.

Several years later we learned from a friend of the teacher that she had aspirations to write a book about children’s literature. Not the literature written for children, but a book about literature written by children. We learned that she had a habit of keeping some of her student’s favorite work as research for her book.

Oh, how I wish I had that book today.

What fun it would be to read it to my girls. They could get a glimpse into the child I was back then. She could learn from my writings about how I saw the world and about the adventures I dreamed of perhaps having some day.

As far as I know that teacher hasn’t written her book.  That one book did have a fateful end for one child.

Likewise, the personal education of countless individuals end the day they leave school.   They fail to ever pick up another book.  They fail to continue to educate themselves. Their education meets a fateful end.

I believe continuing education, and continual reading are so important because books can be that catalyst for change, the inspiration for life, and a starting point for yet another journey.

• How have books proved to be a catalyst for change?
• How have they been an inspiration in your life?
• How have they been a starting point for yet another journey?
• Do you put the things you learn from a book into your life, or do their teachings, and the things you learn meet a fateful end?

Please share!