I Believe in Stories by Andrea von Kampen

A story is an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment and adventure. Stories are told to us in many ways. Whether it's the movie that we watch with our friends, the book we just can't put down, the news that happened yester, the song we hear on the radio, the classic children's book we read to our little sister or the stories our Grandma tells. Stories are told in every culture and help preserve tradition and teach a group of people their values.

A story in a good book can immediately transport us to another place. There are few things in the world that can capture our minds and transport them to another place. When I read Harry Potter I was instantly engrossed in the story and could not put the book down and finished the series in a week and a half. That might have been a little obsessive but I was so captured by the series. I am almost sure that anyone who reads Harry Potter, at some point during the read, wants to be a wizard. I bought into the characters and had to see what happened to them.

Stories are something that we grow up with. We hear the classics like "Little Red Riding Hood", "Jack and the Bean Stock", and "The Three Little Pigs". We listen to our parents tell them to us and we learn more vocabulary, communication skills, and how to help our minds think creatively. Stories can be much more beneficial than video games.

Why is it that people get so obsessed with dramas on TV and have to tune in every week to watch what happens? Because it's a story. We latch on the stories they teach us things or the characters can do things that we always wanted to be able to do. We can live through the characters on screen and imagine ourselves doing things that would never be possible in real life. Not many of us can get lost in jungles, go across the sea to rescue someone, fight in a battle as a Spartan or work in a competitive medical hospital in New York. But when we watch these shows or movies we put ourselves in the place of the characters and feel as if we are there with them too.

Stories. They can do so much for us and make our imaginations go wild. They teach us values an take us to places we could not go to on our own. I believe in stories.