Isn’t it funny how things change from one generation to the next?
These days, when I’m frustrated with my young son spending too much time in front of a screen (big or small), I tell him ‘go read a book!’
When my mam was frustrated with me not going to sleep, she’d tell me to ‘put *down* that book!’
Even Alanis Morissette would raise a smile at the irony.
You couldn’t find me without a book as a kid; in bed at night, on the bus to school, or travelling somewhere – anywhere I had time, there was time to read. There was always a well-thumbed, held-together-by-plasters book in my pocket or stuffed in my bag.
Dahl, Tolkien, Lewis, Macken, de Saint-Exupéry; I tore through them like a beaver felling a tree.
And just as vinyl was supposed to die, only to rise from the ashes, books are again showing the Kindle that there’s no feeling like folding the corner on a page or squeezing your favourite books together onto a shelf.
That’s why, when Paul Ruane and Martin Kelly from our design team asked me to help out with copywriting for the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation’s MS Readathon campaign this year, I leapt at the chance like Charlie Bucket’s Grandpa, Joe!
Brainstorming back and forth, I thought of the way Dahl’s books, in particular, bewitched me, building magical worlds in my mind at every page’s turn.
Paul and Martin were creating fantastical characters to star in the campaign, and so we eventually landed on ‘Unleash the Unreal’ – a nod to the power that great writers wield to let loose a child’s imagination, through the simple, yet wondrous, ordering of words.
This November marks the 37th annual MS Readathon in Ireland, where readers (young and old) can raise much needed funds to support people living with Multiple Sclerosis, and their families.
You can sign up at msreadathon.ie.
As Roald Dahl said: “Kindness – that simple word. To be kind – it covers everything, to my mind. If you’re kind, that’s it.”
Ciarán
Ciarán Ó Raghallaigh is a Senior Account Manager and Copywriter with Fuzion
