By Cole ManorFit Falcon Tribune reporters| Take it from Mrs. Karen Mitchell, head of children’s services at Norristown Public Library: Reading does good things for you.
It helps you relax and tunes up your brain, she said in a recent interview. And more: By reading, you can build connections, learn new ideas, and get help with daily activities, she explained.
It also allows you to take some time and space for yourself. “When I read, I can sit in a comfy chair and forget about things happening in the world,” says Mrs. Mitchell.
As a child, Mrs. Mitchell loved books and reading. She majored in creative writing at Susquehanna University. She was also a competitive Irish dancer, so when she had an opportunity to study dance at a university in Ireland, she packed her bags and headed across the ocean.
After a knee injury, Mrs. Mitchell reconsidered her career options and refocused on her love of all things literary. She traded her dance shoes for books and headed back to the Norristown area to look for a job that would let her be around books as much as possible.
She’s now been at the Norristown Public Library for six years, including four years in her current role as head of children’s services. Mrs. Mitchell picks out all the materials kids can check out and decides which programs the library can run for them, including clubs and story time.
Mrs. Mitchell’s ideas are also echoed on healthline.com, a digital health and wellness website. It says that reading can help your mental health, improve learning skills, and build empathy with other people. It can expose you to new ideas, help you learn new words, and strengthen your problem-solving skills, according to healthline.
How does reading help you make connections? It does that in a variety of ways, says Mrs. Mitchell and the website. “When you read books about different kinds of people, you read about people you might not already know,” Mrs. Mitchell says, adding that reading can show you how different people live and can help you to understand them.
Connections can also be made through book clubs and by sharing books with people, she says. Healthline.com adds that when parents read with their children, it can build family bonds.
“It can help keep your brain up and running and healthy,” Mrs. Mitchell says.
Reading also has real-life impact. For example, Mrs. Mitchell says that when she and her husband brought home their baby, the first thing they did was turn to each other and say, “Now what do we do?” Books helped them learn how to take care of a baby.
“Reading has made me more interested in people,” says Mrs. Mitchell. “Everybody is very different and that’s such a good thing. We should celebrate our differences and the things that make us unique.”
Illustration by Paul, 4th grade, Cole Manor, 2025-2026.
