2019 #ReadforEmpathy Blog Tour
Our 2019 Author Blog Tour......
A blog a day in the run up to Empathy Day on 11 June. Don't miss it!
Many thanks to all our thoughtful bloggers and our fabulous blog host partners.
Links to each blog will be posted daily from 3 June. Watch this space.....
Want to know what's happening on Empathy Day? Click here.
Monday 3 June - Jay Hulme
'People have to learn empathy, and once learnt, they have to work on it every day. In a world such as this, in times such as these, empathy is being erased in favour of reaction and hatred and fear.
It is so much easier to unthinkingly hate or dismiss others, than it is to empathise with them. That’s why books (and other media) that encourage empathy are so important, particularly for children. When a person is in the habit of empathising from a young age, they keep it up, practising empathy becomes second nature, and the world is better for it'.
Tuesday 4 June
'Reading has long been recognised as a way of promoting empathy by allowing readers to explore the world far beyond their own realm of experience and so see and understand other peoples’ points of view'. Read Louise Greig's full blog here.
'....it’s more important than ever for us to work hard to foster empathy in ourselves and in each other. It’s something we as individuals can do, to affect real, positive change. It’s empowering'! Read Susin Nielsen's full blog here.
Wednesday 5 June
'Books really are bridges between writers and readers. Between readers and characters. Between societies, generations, and factions of all kinds. Some make us laugh. Some cry.
They make us think, imagine, question. And they fit us with unfamiliar shoes so we can walk through other lives.
Books build empathy, which means they offer hope for a more peaceful, balanced, healthy world'.
Read Lauren Wolk's full blog here.
Thursday 6 June
'#ReadforEmpathymay be today’s hashtag … but it might as well be #WriteforEmpathy because to write a book that inspires empathy requires much empathy from the author herself'. Read Candy Gourlay's full blog here.
'For a short brown Asian feminist wielding a headscarf, I often travel through the world feeling as though empathy is a gift that is in staggeringly short supply.
Like a steamer used to strip walls bare of the layers of paper used to cover them, empathy helps strip away differences and works to remind us that at the end of the day, we are all of us at our core, simply human'. Read Onjali Rauf's full blog here.
Friday 7 June
'....often we hear other people’s words, without really listening to what they’re saying.
In order to empathise fully with the experiences of others, we have to first listen to them telling us their stories in their own words.
One reason why reading is so important for building empathy, is that it helps us to listen to a character’s point of view without allowing us the chance to interrupt, or insert our own voice and opinions over the top of theirs, as we so often do in real life'. Read Victoria Williamson's full blog here.
Saturday 8 June
'The seasons of life can be hard for us all and as we battle our own winters, it can become hard to notice the frostbites others have endured. I read recently of the ‘gift’ cultures of early civilisations where communities would rally to gift help to those who needed it, confident that should they ever need help later, the community would provide.
Those times are long behind us and now we brave a society that puts all emphasis on the individual – all successes are because of their own efforts and all failures are for them alone to endure. But it doesn’t have to be that way, it’s all a matter of perspective'. Read Joseph Coelho's full blog here.
Sunday 9 June
'....as we flex that empathy muscle, we allow kindness and compassion to inform our behaviour towards others. It’s a fundamental skill in a healthy, supportive society'. Read Corrinne Averiss's full blog here.
'A great book can change a child’s perspective of the world, encouraging them to look outwards and not inwards in this self-involved world that we live in'. Read Mel Darbon's full blog here.
Monday 10 June
'Empathy is the golden treasure to be discovered in fiction and in life and I think of it as the superpower that can be quietly ignited in the minds and hearts of readers as they discover characters in worlds they may not yet have travelled to, or indeed may never, in reality, have access to'. Read Sita Brahmachari's full blog here.
'Stories are a powerful tool to develop empathy because in identifying with book characters we learn to see things from other points of view'. See Allison Colpoy's illustrations and read the full blog post here.
Tuesday 11 June - Empathy Day
Books are key to promoting empathy. I grew up in the only multi-ethnic family in a cul de sac in Sussex. My neighbours were lovely, but I always felt that my house was different to that of my white friends. My mum and my not-yet-stepdad weren’t married, which was rare in those days. We were noisy. We usually had lodgers to help pay the mortgage. I used to worry about inviting friends round.
However, it was a book that I loved that helped me, Kenneth Grahame’s Wind In The Willows. There’s a chapter where Mole is homesick and wants to return to his burrow, but he’s embarrassed about its shabbiness compared to Ratty’s home. The tender way that Ratty empathises and helps put together an impromptu feast as carol singers knock on the door, still brings a tear to my eye. Ratty let me know that good friends want the best for you. Read Patrice Lawrence's full blog here.