A Reading Life

On my way to work today (Friday), I decided to stop by Neighbors' Cafe in downtown Lees Summit and treat myself to breakfast.  Of course, I had a book to keep me company, although my children would be aghast at the thought of me eating alone.  Since it's 105, or it seems like that, I ordered an ice tea instead of my usual coffee and sat down with "I Wish I'd Been There", a book I've assigned for summer reading.  As I began, I checked my email and I had a new post from the Nerdy Book Club blog that I follow.  Today's post was about developing a habit of reading over a lifetime.  As I sat with my breakfast, I reminisced about how I became a reader.

The easy answer is that I'm not sure.  I remember loving to learn to read in Mrs. Hazel Schulte's first grade class room.  We read from the "Dick and Jane" primer series and I can still remember the magic as I decoded the first words, "See Dick run."   Mrs. Schulte also taught phonics but I missed about 1/4 of my first grade year so phonics never really "took" and I became a sight reader.  I still today have some trouble pronouncing words that I have never heard (or seen) before.  In Third grade, Mrs. Kallenbach read to us every day after recess.  Here I heard Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer and Strawberry Girl.  Sometimes I think I should read to my AP class, just a few pages every day of some good work of fiction.  Perhaps I will this year, despite the rigors of the AP curriculum which has us running from Columbus to Clinton in just 9 short months.

By 3rd and 4th grade, I was a voracious reader.  Sometimes I attribute my love of reading to the fact that I grew up in the country.  My best friend moved to Tucson when I was in 4th grade and I remember the rest of that year and the following ones, until she returned in 8th grade, as lonely.  My two brothers were busy building forts in the back yard and catching minnows and I was more than content to curl up on the sofa with a good book.  My mother fed my love of books.  I still remember that she would walk to the Jefferson City library on her lunch hour and with the help of the young adult librarian, select a stack of books for my reading  pleasure.  She did this every week, especially in the summers.  And, then there was my Grandmother Lizzie who loved to read.  She started me on the Little House series and I read all of them and then later read them all to my own girls from the same set she had given me.

Mom turned me on to the Zane Grey series and for a while I read only westerns.  Then, grandma introduced me to the fiction of Frances Parkinson Keyes and I became immersed in the world of the antebellum south.  I read all the Nancy Drew books and eagerly awaited new titles.  These were the only books I bought until I was much older.  I also read the entire Hardy Boys series and Trixie Belden, solidifying my current love of mysteries.

It was great fun in the summer to go with Grandma (who couldn't drive) and my aunt (who visited all summer) to the bookmobile.  I still remember climbing into the van and having such fun selecting books.  I read everything.  Books about raising puppies and books about gardening and novels and histories.  Grandma and I would each emerge with a stack to enjoy until the bookmobile came around again.  I posted its scheduled and eagerly awaited its arrival.

Later in high school, I read through virtually every book in our tiny library, enjoying for the first time the work of Kenneth Roberts.  His Northwest Passage still is one of the best works of historical fiction that I have read.  Our English teacher, Pam Breedlove, encouraged my love of reading and urged me to read in genres that I had not explored.

As a young mom, I read all the classics to and with my kids.  Goodnight Moon was a perpetual bedtime favorite as was Runaway Bunny, the Velveteen Rabbit, and Go, Dog, Go.  And, although my kids enjoy reading, they are most definitely not members of the Nerdy Book Club, pulled in other directions by the allure organized sports.  It remains one of the great mysteries of my life why I, who love to read, have children who do not.

Today, I am surrounded by books.  On my summer reading list and nightstand are the books I've assigned to my AP class, (Devil in the Shape of a Woman and the aforementioned I Wish I'd Been There), the books that our Honors Sophomores English students are reading (Bean Trees and Cold, Sassy Tree)
the Hemmingses of Monticello, a Pulitzer prize winning tome by Annette Gordon-Reed, Devil's Brood,
a fictional tale of the family of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and some professional education books, required for my current coursework.    I have books stacked up in my Kindle and am eagerly planning to purchase a Nook.  I read on my iPad through the Kindle app and I Tunes books.  I read the Christian Science Monitor and Time and some of the Washington Post each day.  I'm listening to Fallen Giants on my android phone and generally have at least one book tucked into my purse and another few on tape in the car.

Books have shaped my life and are one of the great joys of my life.  Trying to encourage my AP students to read widely and for pleasure, as well as for education, remains one of my most important goals each year.

Happy Reading!