Hello! I am back from our semi-annual jaunt to Zimbabwe to see my parents. We did indeed successfully manage to surprise my Dad (more on that when I’ve edited the video and downloaded all the photos off the cameras!) and generally rested and recharged. I do have a post brewing but for now, I read this over on julochka’s blog and started to comment before realising that it was a blog post all of it’s own! So here you go…
When I was 4.5 years old, my parents moved us from our very very small bush community to the capital city so that I could start Grade 1. Big School. Up to that point, the most kids I’d ever seen altogether were the 20 or so at the “local” crèche (and by local I mean it was an hour’s drive away!).
I really struggled. All my early reports are filled with admonitions to pay more attention and stop staring out the window. I struggled so much that I began to fall behind. The headmistress at the time, a true gem of a teacher called Mrs. Marr, took me under her wing. I had to go to her office, with my reader, every week to read out loud to her. To my, probably imperfect memory, we flew through the assigned readers and soon I was way ahead of my class mates. Dick and Jane was old news! I didn’t see much of Mrs. Marr once I moved from the infant’s school to the junior school. But I didn’t loose my love of reading.
My parents encourage it. We didn’t have a TV and so we were bought or given many many books! To this day I prefer reading a book to watching mindless TV. One of my favourite collections was called the Children’s Treasury of Literature. We made my Mum and Dad read us Riki Tiki Tarvi over and over and over again! That’s also where I discovered the Nonsense Poems of Edward Lear and others.
I slowly discovered my parents library (as appropriate of course!) and thanks to my Mom’s love of crime and who-dun-its I read a lot of Ruth Rendall, Kellerman and Tom Clancy. High school literature introduced me to more classic literature and poetry (though not my favourite I did appreciate the writing!). Our high school English/Drama teacher ran an informal reading club, encouraging us to talk about what we were reading and what we’d enjoyed. It was one of the few times I’ve ever felt really confident talking in class!
Since I was small I have read before bed. A few pages, a few chapters. My brain cannot switch off and start its shutdown process without reading. I am very democratic in my reading, almost everything is fair game or I’ll give it a try. I shy away from very heavy philosophical texts at the moment as I find them challenging rather than relaxing and I do enough reading for work and studies to want to concentrate when I pick up a book at bedtime!
Reading is simply a part of who I am and I get antsy and grumpy if I don’t have time to read. Like my Mom, I give books as gifts whenever I can, especially to kids! I love the feel of a hefty book (except when it hits me in the face when I fall asleep reading!). A gorgeously bound and decorative collectors item. A crisp new paperback picked up at the airport. The well loved copy of a popular book from the library.
I love this essay especially the final section;
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. - Rosemarie Urquico
Reading. Where would I be without it?
Love this. I often think to myself (when I see your online bookshelf growing, or it alerts me that you’ve finished another one) that you sure do read a LOT. This explains it. I also love to get lost in a book, and give books as gifts or simply trade a friend quite often! (When my sister was pregnant, we gave her a book-based baby shower. Everyone brought their childhood favorites in order to build the kids’ library in their home. My sister is also a lover of classics).