Reading roars

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other…. CARL SAGAN

The Lion in the Meadow statue, Whakatane. This statue was outside the public library until it moved to a new building and the hope is that the statue will be relocated to again be back near the books. Margaret Mahy (1936 - 2012) was born and grew up in Whakatane. Great public art.