In the first place, I want to inspire you the joy of reading, what I have been doing for long time.
When
I was first asked “What Reading Means to Me.”
My knee-jerk reaction was “What doesn’t
reading mean to me?” As the model of a
addicted bookaholic and a scholar, I thought of all of our standard platitudes: “Reading
is Life.” “Reading is Fundamental.” “There is no such thing as too many
books.” I might easily have gone on and
on along this vein, until I remembered that, for me, it hadn’t always been that
way. Not by a long shot.
My
approach to reading as a child was quite different than it is today. I can still remember clearly how scientific
my approach was at the ripe old age of ten.
“Dad,” I would say, “next time you’re at the library, get me a book for
my book report.” I did give him some direction,
however. “Remember, it should only be
about this big…..it can’t be more
than 100 pages…..and please, make
sure it has lots of pictures.”
You
can only imagine my reaction when he proudly walked in the door once with a
copy of The Call of the Wild.
“Dad!”
I screamed. “Dad! This is like, huge – OhmyGod – 221 pages??!
And, there’s like, practically no pictures. Anywhere!
I tooolldd you -”
“Dave,”
he responded, only mildly irritated, “it’s Jack London! It’s a classic!”
I
stared at him. All I could muster in
response was “Daaaaddd!!”
Prior
to this crisis, my only memories of going to the library were when we would
drive my Grandmother there every Saturday afternoon when we took her on
errands, right in between our stops at the bakery and the cobbler shop. I was thankful that my Gramma only read Westerns,
since these were shelved in the coolest section of the library.
There was a big
overhang above the Westerns section, right underneath the stairs which led up
to a balcony, and it was a great place to hide in the shadows and throw things
or jump out at people. I definitely
loved visiting the library in those days.
My library
career began at this same library, just as auspiciously as my reading
career. It was Boy Scout Government Day,
1971, and all the young boys in our town were to be elected to political posts
throughout the community. Naturally,
there was great interest in running for Police Chief, or Fire Chief, or better
yet, Principal of your own school, where you could have all manner of fun
sitting in the school office and haranguing your friends who were stuck in
class while you weren’t.
I quickly read
through the lists of positions for election and zeroed in on the one slot for which
no one had signed up to run. “Library
Director.” That was it. I knew what I was going to go for. I
think in my selection essay, I wrote something like “I believe that libraries
and books hold the future of mankind, and I would like to dedicate my life to
them.” Basically, I wanted the day off
from school.
As soon as I
found out I had won the election unopposed, I faced only one dilemma. Although the Boy Scouts had efficiently sent
me all the paperwork I needed about running the library for a day, no one had
actually told me where the library was.
Lord knows I hadn’t memorized the route whenever we drove my Grandmother
there. In the car, I was always too busy plotting
new ways to harass my sister under the balcony stairs. Fortunately, for me and the Boy Scouts, my
father came through again.
While I did get
through that one Boy Scout Government Day somewhat unscathed, I was amazed to
be re-elected to this post the following year, again, unopposed. To make matters worse, the library actually
had the nerve to offer me a paid part-time job in the library, shelving books as
a student page.
“Daaaddd!” was all I could say. “How do you get to the library again? I gotta go back this year, too.”
Now, I mention
these anecdotes for one very important reason, to illustrate that there is hope
for all of us. For most of my life, I
was what might today be called “Reading Challenged,” and, if not for the
persistence of parents and teachers and librarians, I would likely have remained
that way. In fact, in my life as a
reader, I have discovered a very fundamental paradox.
Even though I do
believe everyone is a born reader, I do not believe everyone is born to
read. I believe that while most of us
possess the ability innately, we need somebody to jump start us, to take our
dormant flint and steel and get a spark going.
We don’t have to “become” readers. We need to “see” reading as the vital part of
life that it is.
To me it is a
privilege to open someone up to the world of books, but it can be frustrating
since it’s not one of those things you can make happen, and you never really
know you’re doing it once you actually do it.
There is some reason why I kept going back to that library of my youth,
and it wasn’t just to throw things at my sister under the balcony stairs. I was seeing
reading in action. I was seeing people
choosing to spend some time between the covers of a book.
They weren’t at
the movies, although they may have been going later that day. They weren’t watching TV or playing sports at
that moment, although they certainly may have been earlier that day. I was seeing people voluntarily bringing
books home with them without
measuring thickness between their forefinger and their thumb.
My grandmother
was not able to move around that easily in her final years, but nothing was going to keep her from her
weekly visits to the library. My dad,
whom I was convinced knew nothing about anything, had known who had written The Call of the Wild. ‘Nancy Drew’ was not one of my sister’s
friends from school, yet my sister kept talking about her. And Dr. Seuss books were not Christmas
ornaments that had fallen off of the tree.
They had been left there for a reason.
People around me
were showing me books. People around me
were living with books. People around me
were reading books, demonstrating
their love of reading without drumming it into my head, and in spite of my
efforts to resist, I began to understand why.
Now, I’ll let
you in on a little secret. Throughout
much of my childhood, I was convinced I did not know how to read. I was a good student, I knew my alphabet and
my phonics, and I even managed, in spite of myself, to get my book reports in
on time, although I do distinctly remember once deciding to settle for a grade
of ‘F’ rather than continue reading My
Antonia for even one more day. But
what this had to do with that strange concept called “reading,” however, was
beyond me. You see, I knew I knew “HOW
to Read.” I just didn’t think I was “A
READER.”
Thank goodness
others taught me otherwise.
My father never
stopped bringing home those classics, some of which I actually read. Mrs. Hamilton, my speed reading teacher in
high school, kept saying “David, you really are a good reader. You’re just not
a very fast reader.” Mrs. Bragdon, the Children’s Librarian,
started putting aside books just for me, once it became clear to her that I had
indeed figured out how to get to the library.
Bedtime stories were the norm, and, thank goodness, there were still
plenty of publishers including pictures in their books.
Once I made that
voluntary, unassigned decision to open a book and read, just for its own sake,
I was hooked. Reading became a hobby, then a passion, then
a need. Suddenly, I was saying things
like “Oh, I’ve read that,” or, “You know, the book was much better than the
movie,” or, perhaps most surprisingly, “Daaaddd! I wanna go to the library!”
In reading, I
had discovered a way to make dozens of new friends, without having to actually
meet anybody. I became a Hardy Boy, a
Happy Hollister, and sometimes even the third Bobsey Twin. I played with Curious George, the Cat in the
Hat, and, when desperate, even Madeline, or Amelia Bedelia.
Later in life, I
became notorious for giving people books as gifts, and, likewise, I became very
easy to shop for. Throughout our house, various
doorstops and table leg props and high chair booster seats began disappearing
as I began reading them. My mother,
whose oft-spoken phrase “I don’t know why you kids don’t like to read!” had
developed into something of a mantra, was now wailing and gnashing her
teeth. “Would you please stop bringing books into this house!”
Technically, I’m
an adult now, but I still feel like a kid with my love of reading. When I read, I feel like I’m bingeing on
calorie-free ice cream, and nobody can make me stop. Reading
has become a healthy indulgence, a positive form of escape, a chance to be
transported, teleported even, without having to leave your chair or have your
cells reconstructed. It is virtual
reality without the safety goggles.
Well, okay, almost
everything.
In his recent
memoir titled On Writing, Stephen
King refers to reading as the “only proven method of time travel.” I will paraphrase his explanation: “I am writing this sentence on May 5,
1989 , and the one thing I know for sure is that you’re
listening to me at some other time, in the future…and you think I’m talking to
you right now.”
That’s pretty
powerful stuff.
The theorist
Walter Ong says that reading helps us “develop an interiority,” and that our
“human spirit is meant for knowledge…something only reading can give us.” I love words like that, seeing as I work for
a college. But I sometimes prefer very
basal explanations that only a fellow reader can give.
For example,
Jimmy Durante, in his comic song “The Day I Read a Book.” He alliterates wonderful rhymes such as “I
couldn’t believe it! Didn’t think I could
read it!” And I can only echo his refrain.
“I’ll never forget it! The day I
read a book!”
In a similar,
though less musical vein, I have a cousin who rivals my voracious appetite for
books. I remember how shocked I was to
discover this, and I asked him why he read so much. His answer was both as simple and as
mind-blowing as Mr. Durante’s. “You can
get smart for free. It’s awesome.”
I’m somewhat of
a fan of the writer Julia Cameron. Her
series of books on The Artist’s Way
have encouraged hundreds of readers to convince themselves of the importance of
nurturing their own creative spirits. My
favorite book of hers is titled The Right
to Write, and in it she confesses that, when she meets St. Peter at the
Pearly Gates, she hopes to share one thing only: that she convinced someone to write. That, she says, will be plenty to be proud
of.
As a librarian,
I think I’d like to tell St. Peter that I convinced someone to read.
In the end,
however, I always seem to end up referencing what is, for me, one of the most
fundamental manifestations of American culture:
the Broadway Musical, and my own, personal favorite iconoclast, Stephen
Sondheim.
When I finally try
to boil down to just a few words what reading means to me, what comes to mind,
oddly enough, is the title of Mr. Sondheim’s composition “Being Alive,” from the musical Company.
I’d like to share one passage from that song that makes me think not
only of love for another human being, but, for some reason, of reading.
Someone
to hold you too close
Someone
to hurt you too deep
Someone
to sit in your chair
And
ruin your sleep
And
make you aware of being alive.
Someone
to need you too much
Someone
to know you too well
Someone
to pull you up short
And
put you through hell
And
give you support for being alive.
Being
alive.
When I read, I’m
reminded of all of my senses and sensations and imaginations. When I read, I’m reminded I have a brain, and
a heart, and a soul.
When I read, I’m
reminded I’m alive.
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