What kind of books do you read? Do you think reading is important for you?
For those of you who are at the same age as I am, do you read BOBO when you were a kid? I did.
Why do you think many Indonesians do not have a habit to read books? Is it to do with the fact that reading books require us to spend money? Is it to do with the fact that getting books, especially for us who live in rural areas is relatively difficult?
For example, if you want to buy high quality books for children and teenagers, you can easily do so at Gramedia. The thing is, usually, Gramedia Book Store is located at a province capital city, such as Medan, if you live in North Sumatra. If you in DKI or Daerah Khusus Ibukota, you might find Gramedia Book Stores easily around your neighborhoods.
My parents are farmers, both my mom and my dad. They don't really buy books for me and my siblings except books related to our schooling which are obligatory books, that students must have.
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What Kinds of Books Do I read from Early on?Â
I already started to read several kinds of books, at least when I was at my second year of my elementary school. My dad's siblings, especially his sisters, used to bring books to the village and gave those for me to read.
As I remember now, unfortunately, due to particular situations at that time, most of those books were gone. I was a small kid, and I didn't really have such a habit on how to take care of books.
My mom didn't read books, so, it does look to me now that she didn't really have a significant effort to keep those books safe.
I am told by one of my dad's sisters, how she found out that my mom could used my school-notes to light fire in the kitchen. As one day, when she visited us, in the village, she noticed that there were some pages of my school-note next to our fireplace. She took the pages and found out that those pages contained my handwriting.
