I Love To Read
Thu., October 24, 07:48 AM
I Love To Read
Sometimes people talk about when they learned to read. Although I have a very good memory – and it goes back to when I was no more than three years old – I absolutely cannot remember when I couldn’t read. I can recall sitting and listening to my mother read to me, but that was only because they were harder books. Even before I started school, I knew the letters and I was beginning to read simple words – which, I suppose, is how most people learned to read.
The biggest problem with learning to read was that there wasn’t enough material, despite an aunt who always gave books as gifts. So I read whatever there was, like a cereal box that was on the table while I was eating breakfast. That was the beginning of learning about vitamins. There was the box of Band-Aids – with that strange word, wound – and I became interested in first aid. Perhaps that’s when the seed was planted for “nothing you ever learn is wasted.”
When I discovered public libraries, I was delighted. I could cheerfully spend an afternoon there – and then check out more books to read at home. I volunteered to work in our elementary school library and later in our high school library, which led to the job that put me through college. First reading brought the world to me, and then it helped me find my way out in the world. It was so important to me that I needed to share it.
All of my children learned to read before they started school. It was inevitable, because that’s what they saw me doing – and enjoying. “Don’t go back in the house,” said my little one, “get a book and sit on the steps.” I volunteered in their school library too. While I was proud that I could help – I catalogued hundreds of books donated from a school that closed – I was saddened by the kids who didn’t like to read. They read library books when they were assigned to do so. So few children read fiction that I was able to run an inventory while classes were in session. And I simply could not “sell” some of the stories that were old favorites. Evidently, Ferdinand, the Bull is unacceptable because Munro Leaf didn’t illustrate it in full color. (But my son liked it, and quoted it.)
I’ve also volunteered to tutor illiterate adults. The lady I was assigned didn’t really need a reading teacher as much as she needed someone to go over the weekly Bible chapter. Over the year I read with her, I never could interest her in or any other book except the Bible or even in a newspaper – which doesn’t mean that she didn’t deserve a tutor. I gave that up when I had to take a full time job. I may do that again sometime, although I have some issues with the way the local Literacy Volunteers is managed. I still want to share the joy of reading. I’m still lending my books and making recommendations to anyone whose interested. But today I read about an absolutely fabulous reading volunteer.
According to an article in Biography magazine, there is a place in Baltimore called the Book Thing. Russell Wattenberg, the man who runs it, spends his time accepting books from people who don’t want them and giving them away to people who do want them. He stamps the books “This is a free book – not for resale.”
Books are for sharing. It seems to me that this is what a library should be – just a place to get books, then either pass them on or give them back. If I lived nearby, I’d be one of his volunteers.
I wonder if such an enterprise would work in Connecticut, where we have lots of public libraries, schools with libraries, and an interest in education. Knowing how library managements think, I’m afraid they’d object because it would horn in on their circulation. Talk about losing track of your goal.
