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The Shadow of the Wind

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The Shadow of the Wind
From a very young age, children are taught to read. They might ask, why? Why do I need to understand how these squiggles on the paper come together to form words? But, the answer is always the same. Books are the basis of all society and culture. If no one had ever recorded laws, and poetry, and math, then they would all be lost by now, scattered to the wind. All over the world, throughout history, books have changed lives. From America to Egypt to Mesopotamia; from the 1st century to the 21st, books have had great effects on all people, no matter what race, religion, or gender. Books can and have changed our lives. From Gandhi to the Sons of Liberty to great mathematicians, books have provided guidance and inspiration.

At the first light of dawn in postwar Barcelona, a bookseller leads his motherless son to a mysterious crypt called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. This labyrinthine sanctuary houses the books that have lost their owners, books that are no longer remembered by anyone. It is here that ten-year-old Daniel Sempere pulls a single book—The Shadow of the Wind—off of the dusty shelve to adopt as his own. With one fateful turn of a page, he begins an adventure that will unravel another man's tragedy and solve a mystery that has already taken many lives and will shape his entire future.
Books can teach, illuminate, and even inspire. But they can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use them to those ends.
In today's world, the onus is on writers, readers, bookstores and publishers to print and distribute literature and words that can deliver a message not only of hope, but help each of us build a brave new world in which hope does not seem a foolishly childish illusion.

The most important books that make it to light in today's world must focus on raising awareness and consciousness of all of us as individuals and as a species, furthering environmental protection and activism, inspiring and encouraging the best parts of human

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