I’m a reader. In fact, that very phrase is a family joke. I dropped that bombshell during a game of boggle one night after a particularly brilliant find, very smugly, in fact. And then I misspelled something ridiculously ordinary, like “dog” or “house”. I can’t remember exactly, but it was funny. Dumb announcements and mistakes aside, I spent many a long hour reading as a child. The library was one of my favorite places. Ever. I used to squint and twist to maximize hall light long after I was supposed to be sleeping. My parents exiled us to the basement when I was 10, to make room for our new brother upstairs, and I took advantage of the distance from light-aware parents to read late into the night. I miss those days, I must say.
These days I read in snatches while rocking a babe to sleep, or nursing a child, or for ten minutes before I conk out at night. I read a lot less fiction than I used to; there’s suddenly more need to read things like “Sleepless in America” or Aviva Jill Romm’s latest. But, I still read, and my kids see me doing it. Huge hurrah for the Kindle I got for Christmas. I read to our kids, and try to encourage them to “read” to themselves.
Until very recently, independent reading was not something Maren was in to. And then, a few days ago, she settled in to the papasan chair that saw many a long reading hour during my university days (and more than a few naps too!), asked for a blanket, and then announced, “I NEED books!!”. She NEEDS a lot of things recently, but I was happy to comply with this one.
There are many things I would like to instill in my children, but I think a love of the written word is pretty high up on the list. Formal education or no, good test scores or no, “good” job or no, as long as you read, there is a huge, huge world open to you. So, when I see things like this, I do a little happy dance and am ridiculously giddy for the rest of the day. I hope she’ll always find time to sit with a book. I hope I’ll always be able to find fun and interesting ways to encourage my kids to be readers.
