Passing the passion for reading down to kidsA couple nights ago I found myself among a group of women talking about books. Literature was the topic of choice and not by chance; the gathering was that of a book club.
The air was filled with overlapping voices as we discussed the dark novel most had read prior to the meeting, the first after an unplanned hiatus. I was excited for the evening out with my peers and for the excuse to have read a book more than 300 pages long which was not considered “chick lit.”
As a stay-at-home mother of two young children, I find my lifelong passion for literature has taken a backseat and been reduced to reading the “People” column on page A2 in our daily newspaper and snippets from the monthly periodicals I subscribe to about parenting, housekeeping and scrapbooking. I am forced to read these bit by bit, often falling behind, leaving me with a pile of half-read magazines destined for the recycle bin.
Being invited to this book club meeting forced me to read something out of my self-imposed comfort zone and pick up a thought provoking book and embrace, if only for a couple of days, one of my favorite past times prior to having children.
For as long as I can remember, I loved to read. Good thing, too, because there were several years growing up my mother and I lived without a car or a television. As a child I had an active imagination fueled by a voracious appetite for the written word.
In our single-income household, books were a luxury we could rarely afford. My mother and I were library card carriers in nearly every city we lived. I remember when we lived in Hilo, Hawaii, where the nearest library was a bus ride and a long walk from where we lived. To satisfy my literary thirst, I frequented my middle school library and often strolled home with arms loaded down by books.
I developed a penchant for bookstores during my teen years; I loved to walk among the stacks browsing titles and sneaking peeks in tomes a little mature for my age. Later, while my husband and I were still dating, we would often spend time together at bookstores and even now, often times a night out together ends with a stop at one in our neighborhood.
Growing up, I considered books special gifts. Those that sparked my imagination and had me dreaming of becoming a writer were some of my most prized possessions. Today my bookshelves are still home to titles such as “Charlotte's Web,” the Little House and Narnia books, “The Pigman,” “Island of the Blue Dolphin,” “The Grapes of Wrath”...
As a mom, one of the ways I like to spoil my children is by buying them books. Thanks to two neighborhood bookstores, school book orders, and annual sales at the Scholastic Books warehouse here in town, I have ample opportunities to pick up new titles for Barcelona and Berkeley.
A few months ago, my kindergartener started selecting and checking out books from her school library. She gravitates toward non-fiction titles about the planets, sodium and stars; she picks these books because she wants to be a doctor when she grows up.
My youngest has finally slowed down long enough to sit down with a book. He likes to look for hidden pictures in his cardboard books. A new lift-the-flap book about dragons is one of his favorites.
Both my children have small bookshelves in their rooms overflowing with titles. Thanks to their parents and my mother, who now works as a school librarian, Barcelona and Berkeley have a wonderful collection of fiction and non fiction at their finger tips. It is such a delight for me when I catch them reading to themselves and I am eager for them to really appreciate these books for the words as much as the pictures.
Just recently, my husband started reading chapter books to Barcelona. He started with “The Hundred Dresses” and is now reading “Charlotte’s Web's” -- both classic tales about acceptance and friendship. My daughter listens to her father with rapt attention, absorbing these stories and declaring her disappointment when he finishes a chapter and it is time to go to bed.
Barcelona likes to sleep with the books she is fond of tucked behind her pillow. Some mornings, when the day has barely started, I can hear her in her room reciting these stories to herself. I have taken my daughter's lead and put a couple of indestructible titles in Berkeley's crib for him to look at on those days he is awake before the rest of us.
I know it is only a matter of months before my daughter will learn how to read on her own and her brother is sure to follow suit. Will Barcelona and Berkeley both love the written word as much as their mother? Will they one day sit with friends and talk about the latest best seller? More importantly, will books open the doors to my children's imagination and inspire them to dream?
This is my hope for them.
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