It’s that time of year again, the time where people begin wracking their brains and wrecking their bank accounts to figure out what they can purchase for the people they hold dear to bring them some bit of joy during the holiday season.

More often than not, at least in my family, the primary gift-getters will be kids. It can be difficult to figure out what one can get a child because, as with everything else in their life, they so quickly grow out of everything – a gift given with the best of intentions can easily be tossed aside by a child and forgotten within days.

To be sure, much the same can be said of the adults in our lives – with the hectic nature of survival these days, it’s often difficult for the grown-ups to put any stock in the gifts they receive or even to conceive of a gift that surpasses filling some utilitarian need.

But there is at least one gift that can bring joy to the recipient and the giver for years to come, a gift that is as timeless as the act of giving itself – books.

I know, the idea of giving books to children who are inundated with flashing screens seems counterintuitive, just as the idea of giving something that requires even more time and sacrifice from adults does, but the gift of literature is sure to be a gift that can be enjoyed for years to come.

In my home, there are more books than there are bricks – there are three bookcases full of children’s books and another five or six crammed with grown-up literature and an array of books scattered about.

In a child’s life, nothing could be more beneficial than the gift of books – along with the hours of joy they’ll get from reading about their favorite characters is the joy they’ll get from being read to with their parents. Further, tiny hands holding books are indicative of growing minds and nothing good be better for kids and adults alike.

For us grown-ups, the hours spent ingesting the words in a book are hours spent not worrying and adventuring off to some distant place not attached to the very real stress of everyday life. Half an hour spent reading is good for the mind in a million different ways.

Apart from the existential benefit of reading, there are very real scientific benefits to the habit: for children, reading enhances language skills and concentration, exercises the brain, instills a thirst for knowledge and develops imagination and creativity; for adults, reading improves memory, reduces stress, expands vocabulary and enhances analytical thinking.

In a world of temporary things, books and the words within them truly are the gift that keeps on giving.