Kansas High School State Champion Taylor Marie Swanson felt herself soaring to a gold medal again reading “Maggie Vaults Over the Moon.”
If you feel yourself taking flight with heroine Maggie Steele as she pole-vaults over the moon, don’t be surprised.
Many readers of the new teen novel Maggie Vaults Over the Moon have actually felt the physical sensation of vaulting higher and higher – and a new study explains why.
According to the article, “Your Brain on Fiction”, something amazing happens to our brain when we simply read about fictional characters doing exciting and dramatic things. Our brain responds like we’re really doing those things ourselves. The study shows that when Maggie takes flight, readers do, too.
Writing for The New York Times, Annie Murphy Paul reports that, while many people today are fixated with digital devices and spending most of their free time on Facebook or Twitter, new evidence shows we could all benefit from putting away our smart phones and reading good fiction.
According to the story, scientists have come to realize that, to the brain, a fictional account can seem even more real than the real world: Continue Reading →
