Books have surface and depth
A book tells one story on its surface and keeps another in its depths, the way a pond does. What you get from it depends on how far down you are willing to look.
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While his parents separate, thirteen-year-old Juan spends a summer with his eccentric uncle's labyrinthine library, where books respond to him and one wild book must be found.
A book mirrors its reader
A book reflects what the person reading it already thinks, so the same pages read differently to a hero and to a villain. The text is never the whole of the meaning; the reader supplies part of it.
Great readers improve books
The best readers don't just take something from a book; they add something to it and make it better. Reading well is a contribution, not only a consumption.
Reading that flows like rivers
Rarely, a reader notices that a book has changed for them in particular. That is the sign of a way of reading that works like a river: never still, its waters always moving, so the same book is never met twice.
Some books must be hunted
Usually we speak of getting lost in a book, but some books are themselves lost and have to be tracked down before they can be read. The search for a book that eludes every reader becomes an adventure in its own right.
The best stories stay wild
Good stories are wild things to be cared for, not tamed. The point, for young and old readers alike, is to let our life stories keep their wild lives rather than force them into order.
Books that point elsewhere
Some books are not about anything in themselves; their use is to lead you to other books. One good book works as a guide that opens a path through all the rest.
Odd groupings reveal hidden links
Shelving books under strange, seemingly random headings brings together titles nobody would have put side by side. A collection arranged by unexpected connections becomes a place of discovery, not just storage.
The right book finds you
There is a book for every reader and a reader for every book, so it can feel as if the book chose you rather than the reverse. The same logic implies that some books stay out of reach until you are the reader they are waiting for.