READER LETTER | Library ruins should inspire importance of reading

One Tuesday morning, I visited the historic Brakpan public library in Ekurhuleni and to my horror the monumental institute was lying in ruins. I found out it was gutted by fire.

The library was an oasis of knowledge for avid readers. From my experience and good memories with now-defunct library, I am inspired to emphasise the importance of libraries and books, and how they can make remarkable differences in shaping our children’s destinies.

We need to encourage our children to visit libraries. It is from the calabash of diversified reads in libraries that our children discover their idols who could inspire them to dream big.

It is good that the world’s literacy rate has risen sharply in recent years. But being literate alone is not practically beneficial. There is a genius when literacy is blended with critical thinking.

Critical thinking bears innovativeness, creativity and intelligent imagination through extensive reading, experimenting with works of others and wide research by visiting libraries.

Great men like Bill Gates, Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison were inspired to greatness by critical thinking coupled with inexhaustible experimentation.

Batsirai Kativu, Johannesburg