Why Reading Matters: A Holistic Study for the Digital Age

A documentary about the importance of reading is sure to warm many a librarian's heart—even if this particular glossy BBC-aired effort doesn't do much more than skim the surface of current research. Narrator and science writer Rita Carter notes that our contemporary understanding of how the brain handles the written word has evolved by leaps and bounds since the development of scanning technologies such as MRIs. Why Reading Matters proceeds to touch on a variety of subjects, including the mental development of children learning to read, our preliterate ancestors, London cabbies, and video gamers, without satisfactorily connecting the dots between them. A discussion of the importance of pattern recognition in preparing the prehistoric mind for the abstraction of symbols such as letters ignores the fact that many species rely on similar awareness for survival. An exploration of how terms coined by Shakespeare excite certain areas of the brain when they're read glosses over the reality that Shakespeare wasn't writing for readers but for speakers on the stage. The documentary does make a good case, however, for both the necessity of literacy in being able to function within a complex society, and for the role fiction plays in helping develop empathy (Wuthering Heights serves as an example here). For those reasons, and because reading really does matter, this is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (F. Gardner)