Growing Good Men Through Reading

Last week, we finished installing the book nook in the BGS Reception, so that all visitors to the school have an opportunity to join our community of readers as they wait for appointments.  This book nook joins the ones that already exist in each House area, ensuring that our boys are never without some quality reading material.

Reading provides all of us with doors to so many new worlds – and sparks imagination, empathy and creativity on top of improved literacy skills.  So at BGS we don’t ask if you are a reader, we ask, “What are you reading?”.

Reading can also provide us with some wonderful role models that can help shape our character.  Who has not learnt of the value of kindness from Harry Potter’s Dumbledore? Of the magic of adventure through Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit?  Who better models justice than To Kill A Mockingbird’s Atticus Finch? Who could be a more inspiring friend than Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars? Who could fail to be moved by the wisdom of Aslan in C.S Lewis’ Narnia series?  Or of friendship from Samwise Gamgee of The Lord of The Rings?

And these are just the fictional role models – there are so many biographies out there detailing the extraordinary lives of some famous and simply unique individuals.

Reading can be a wonderful way to begin conversations with young men about the sort of values they aspire to, and the man they would like one day to be.  So, next time you talk to your son or any other young man about his reading material, why not ask him what he is learning from the men he is reading about in books.  What a magical glimpse in to the man he is becoming.

Ms Lauren Cook
Head of Senior Boys, Wellbeing