{"id":45,"date":"2026-06-28T20:53:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/?p=45"},"modified":"2026-06-28T20:54:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:54:42","slug":"healing-power-of-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/2026\/06\/28\/healing-power-of-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Hyperlinked Communities Reflection: The Healing Power of Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

In \u201cThe Healing Power of Books: Using Reading to Address Social and Emotional Needs<\/a>,\u201d Jessica Klinker describes how books serve as both mirrors and lenses, showing readers both themselves and others. I agree with this wholeheartedly, as this idea has been a major through-line in various stages of my life. Because I grew up moving around, I learned to recognize differences between cultures at a young age, and because books were my constant, I was able to further practice the skills of stepping into other people\u2019s shoes. This is what led me to major in Narrative Studies in college and then teach reading and writing to middle- and high-school students. It is also how I ended up in bookselling and then chose to pursue an MLIS. Especially in this time of increasing isolation and the loss of third-spaces, it is more important than ever that we build and practice empathy, and I believe that stories are a great way to achieve this.<\/p>\n

However, I would venture to say that it\u2019s not just books that are healing\u2014though Klinker brings up audiobooks, e-books, large print, and languages, we can also engage with stories through other media<\/em>, including but not limited to movies, theatre, TV shows, and even video games. \"Logged-in (I hesitate to use the word \u201cconsume\u201d here because the purpose of engaging with stories should not be simply to intake a certain amount, but to meaningfully interact with them instead.) I feel like this shift can be seen in how we no longer listen to the radio because we now have other technology, but we get our news through other formats and we still listen to podcasts through our smartphones. Though fewer people are reading physical books, more formats of storytelling have cropped up, and the fact that libraries now have whole DVD collections, video game collections, and even partnerships with streaming platforms such as Kanopy reflects this. Access and choice are important, as Klinker points out, and it is for this reason that we must remember to think beyond just the printed word.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In \u201cThe Healing Power of Books: Using Reading to Address Social and Emotional Needs,\u201d Jessica Klinker describes how books serve as both mirrors and lenses, showing readers both themselves and others. I agree with this wholeheartedly, as this idea has been a major through-line in various stages of my life. Because I grew up moving … Continue reading Hyperlinked Communities Reflection: The Healing Power of Stories<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":822,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/822"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/anitayjc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}