Fun Thing of the Day

From The New Zealand Book Council

I am not ashamed to confess that I was not immune to the requisite (sadly, misguided) Che Guevara phase most people of my generation went (are still going) through. By phase, I mean reading and rereading everything about and by him and maybe, possibly, having too many dreams in which he led (with me in tow) the revolution at my middle school. I was slightly more tolerable, I suppose, than my contemporaries, who did not read the books, did not know the history, but did own 5 different t-shirts with his face emblazoned on them… and wore these in rotation, proudly. But only slightly more tolerable than them. All this to say, watching this video did not remind me that I wish I could do something about Cuba, or immediately bring to mind the UN speech I nearly memorized,  or the photos of Aleida I scrutinized. Instead, it transported me back into my 13-year old body, and made me feel almost exactly what it felt like to read his biography. It was an unexpected, fleeting, and incredibly surprising experience. Watching this video about the book that shaped this man caused me to relive what it felt like to be shaped by a book about this man. You see where I’m going with this?

All in all, I am now convinced, thanks to this video, that books are cool!

-Aida