Reading? A companionship that is like no other and which nothing can replace.

Daniel Pennac (1944-)
Daniel Pennacchioni, known as Daniel Pennac, French writer

“The start of school was well timed, and it took the future into its own hands. Reading, writing, arithmetic… At first, he was really enthusiastic about it: that all those sticks, loops, circles, and little bridges put together made letters—it was beautiful! And those letters together made syllables, and those syllables, strung together, made words—he couldn’t believe it. And that some of those words were so familiar to him—it was magical! Take “Mama,” for example: “mama”—three little bridges, a circle, a loop, three more little bridges, a second circle, another loop, and two final little bridges—result: “mama.” How could he recover from such wonder? At first, in an uncertain voice, he stammered the two syllables separately: “Ma-ma.” And then, all of a sudden: Mama!
This cry of joy is in celebration of the culmination of the most monumental intellectual journey imaginable—a sort of first step on the moon, the transition from the most utterly arbitrary graphic symbols to the most emotionally charged meaning! Little bridges, loops, circles… and… Mama! It’s written right there, before his eyes, but it’s within him that it blossoms! It’s not a combination of syllables, it’s not a word, it’s not a concept, it’s not a “mama”—it’s his very own mother, a magical transmutation, infinitely more eloquent than the most faithful of photographs, yet nothing more than little circles, little bridges… but which have suddenly—and forever!—ceased to be themselves, to be nothing, in order to become this presence, this voice, this scent, this hand, this lap, this infinity of details, this everything, so intimately absolute, and so absolutely foreign to what is traced there, on the lines of the page, within the four walls of the classroom…”

Daniel Pennac (1944-)
​Daniel Pennacchioni, known as Daniel Pennac, French writer