Since I was little, I’ve loved the unrealistic books, the ones with dragons and witches, vampires and ghosts, powers and aliens. More times than I can count people have questioned my selection. ”How will you learn anything from books that aren’t about the real world?”
We’re expected to learn from historical documentaries, non-fiction accounts of animals and laws of science, and anything beyond that is simply a way to pass the time.
On the one hand, I totally understand where this assumption comes from: it makes sense to infer that you’ll definitely take away a good bit of knowledge from a book on immunobiology, or the battle of Antietam. It’s a little more curious that I learned more from a series about an adolescent wizard than probably within the whole of the eighth grade.
Of course, there are books like Artemis Fowl that include overt facts on a regular basis, details known to brilliant characters, or the quickest comments from lessons in school a character sits through. These are everywhere. Even beyond that, there are the facts and myths forming the fabric of cherished works like the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, teaching anyone who chooses to dive into the world of Camp Half-Blood a pretty comprehensive outline of basic Greek mythology, even some Greek and Latin roots and words; they’re little things that you don’t really think about, but they come in handy, so when my Spanish teacher had the prefix ichthy on a pre-test and I remembered reading about ichthyocentaurs (front legged hooves, back fish tailed centaurs) I wasn’t completely lost.
The thing is, whatever the genre, every book has an author. There’s a person behind every story, and behind every sentence they scribble is their entire lifetime of experiences, which they draw on in every moment of their writing. Maybe the Unwind series takes place in an alternative dystopia, but atop the marionettes of characters and plot lines are the puppeteers in the form of the people and moments Neal Shusterman has taken in throughout his life, the ones that helped him to craft the framework of ideas and concepts interspersed with the storyline itself. In the little moments of every book are snippets of knowledge: shows they’ve watched or hobbies we watch through their eyes, teaching us about the things in their lives we may never experience. The pain and growth you experience alongside the stars of every work are very real, and it’s possible to learn so much about humanity, about life and loss and the way people function, sitting in your bedroom immersed in anything from Marie Lu’s Legend to Cassandra Clare’s Clockwork Princess. The magic or alternate reality can never strip away the fact that humanity is at the heart of it all, that whether the plot includes rebellion or discovery of a true identity the characters involved have lives that will affect you when you experience their story.
I think herein lies the beauty of fantasy and fiction; if you re-read a nonfiction piece you’re faced with the same facts, and there’s nothing new for you to take away, it’s a black and white sort of genre. If you read fantasy, however, every time you read a book it means something different to you, depending on what’s currently going on in your life, your age, and every other factor, so each re-read is a wholly new experience and can alter your way of thinking, even when it’s your tenth time through. I’ve been reading Harry Potter since elementary school, and no matter how many times I thumb through the familiar, well-worn pages I never cease to make new connections and realizations. With fantasy you’ve never reached a maximum learning experience, which I would wager contributes to why so many of us avid fiction lovers are so obsessed with our favorite series; they’ve been integral to so many phases of our lives, and we’ve lived in their worlds on so many occasions we can’t help but feel that they’re our own.
I will probably be turning the pages of books featuring pixies and wizards and futuristic societies every day of the rest of my life. None of it is realistic, but I know I’ll never stop learning from the impractical.
