They’re never just books.

They’re whole worlds bound in paper and ink and spines. They’re the friends who never left you behind, the ones who were always there when the rest of the world wasn’t, the ones who turned a rainy day into an adventure.

They’re the ones that didn’t care that you were a little overweight, that you had glasses or flat feet or had to use an inhaler at the thought of a mile run.

They’re the ones that didn’t laugh or make fun.

They’re the ones who encouraged you to think, to work, to create, that showed it was a worthy endeavor to put words to paper. They’re the ones who inspired, pushed you to make your own worlds, your own stories.

Like a symbol of scientific notation, stories are an immense force of the universe bound within the confines of something as small as a paperback.