Why children’s books are a must for adults

 

Why children’s books are a must for adults

Over the last decade, and more so of late, I have found myself reaching for Ruskin Bond, Agatha Christie, Chacha Chaudhary, Billoo, Pinky, and the lot. If I could have found copies of Misha and Champak, I would have grabbed those as well. I never put much thought into it, until I saw my teenage son reading Wimpy Kid after reading the likes of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and Steve Job’s biography. Now, this couldn’t be genetics.

I put two and two together and realised this to be a coping mechanism. The books we read in childhood or even teenage years are portals to our happy space — when life was straightforward, simple, and carefree, a bed of roses with an odd thorn here or there. So, whenever things become a bit too much to handle, as they did for my son and me when my husband was diagnosed with cancer last year, the immediate way to find balance was to turn to books well below our age grade.

Going back to children’s books, even activity books with crosswords, word searches, and find-the-hidden-object games, I realised that stress or not, I need to keep returning to them. In children’s books, life is worth living, always. They are happy, full of hope, and things always turn out okay in the end. Even if you are fed a poisonous apple and die, someone will come along, kiss you, and bring you back to life!

Children’s stories magically uplift you, and we need more uplifting in adult years than we did as kids. The hope, the happiness, the heartfulness are infectious. Never have I read a children’s book and given up midway; the resilient spirit of the stories carries you to the end.

I can’t pinpoint the exact age when adulting begins, but I would think it starts around 25 when you begin to get a sense of life, minus the protective bubble of parents.

And when it does, it starts ebbing all the virtues that make children these wondrous beings — joyful blobs of energy, who hop, skip, and skittle through life.

Adulting robs you of innocence, wonder, and the ability to marvel at the most ordinary things. Catching fireflies, ladybugs, and frogs; growing up around bushes twice my height; hunting for flowers and pretty pebbles to play gittey or five stones — these brought me such happiness that nothing in my adult life compares. That’s when the dismal truth hits you: adulting is a scam.

All evolved souls and saints agree with me, for they have always advised us grown-up humans to be childlike if we want a shot at peace and happiness. I have discovered that there is no easier way to let your inner child shine than go back to the books for the young ones. To bring back the innocence long gone, and let go of cynicism, to allow hope into the heart, and to let wonder slowly crawl back into our lives. Get that bounce in your step, even literally, if you can play hopscotch or jump rope. Learn to laugh without abandon again like kids who can laugh at the same joke a hundred times. And if you live with children, look to them for cues and clues on how to live life. I happenstance-ly turned to mine and here I am, telling the world the wonders of being like children and how.

When talking of children’s literature, it would be remiss of me to not mention the idyllic artwork. The non-chaotic, non-cacophonous drawings are a salve to the soul that heals and soothes. The calmness makes time standstill, a most welcome pause in our hurried lives — when the hare meets the tortoise. These books help reset the compass to find our true north, which for most of us is always in an electromagnetic field.

Reading children’s books is as refreshing as walking barefoot on dewy morning grass. It takes away all of your stress and leaves you with newer and brighter perspectives — if you can escape Baba Yaga, the ‘wickedest witch’ who eats children, other problems in life seem a little trifling!