Books enable children to see with their eyes things they have never seen, and learn things no one has ever told them. Sea creatures from the deep, nebulae thousands of light years away, the awe we feel when we encounter something wild or discover something that blows our minds; books hold all of these secrets within their pages, waiting to be unearthed. They can ‘lighten our darkness and lead us out into the expanding universe’, as Madeleine de l’Engle said. They teach children to slow down, to linger, to look beyond themselves, and to look closer, to turn the page without hurry – this is, after all, what wonder is all about.