Three books for every English-speaking 11 year old on their birthday upon the cusp of adulthood
It is said that one learns ones own language twice: the first for speaking, the second for reading. But I would say that there is a third time too: for thinking.
To that end, I advocate three books as a birthday present for every English-speaking 11 year old on the cusp of adulthood. They are: Mortimer Alder’s How to Read a Book, Peter Kreeft’s Socratic Logic and Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
The first teaches how to learn. The second teaches how to reason. And the third teaches how to behave with others.
Wisdom is the goal of human existence; beauty is its gateway and love is its carriage. Harmony is the quality of just judgments and decisions, moral and aesthetic. Wisdom requires courage and confidence in one's conscience, and conviction accompanied by a humility for recognising one’s own capacity for error and the need for correction.