I went to the library recently to grab a few audio books to amuse me while I made a long car trip. While I was there, a saw a woman teaching another woman how to read. The progress was slow and painful, but it was happening. I thought what a wonderful thing that was, both on the part of the teacher and of the learner, to give the gift of reading to someone who doesn’t have it, and to learn to read and experience all the worlds that reading opens.
When I mentioned this incident on Facebook, a friend quipped, if you have audio books why bother to learn to read? Of course, not being able to read closes so many doors, but having audio books is a pretty wonderful thing, too–I can “read” without having to take my eyes off the highway, learn something interesting as I travel, be entertained instead of bored, pass the time in good company, and get through books I might not have time to otherwise.
My love affair with reading started when I was on a camping trip when I was about five years old. Before turning out the lantern, my dad was settling down in his sleeping bag to read as he did every night, at home or away. My brother, Paul, was reading his preferred literature, a comic book. I had nothing. I borrowed a comic book from Paul so I could read, too (even though I couldn’t read yet), and I was hooked for life. I still try to read every night before I go to sleep, and as often as I can manage in between.
Like so many people, I love that image of the man standing on top of a ladder in a library, books under his arms and one between his knees, completely engrossed in yet another book. This picture captures what reading is like for me and others like me–we know what it is to be hijacked by a book. For some of us, reading is a passion, but also a practice for our craft. Stephen King has said that those who don’t have time to read will have neither the time nor the tools to write. I suppose a great many people who read imagine they can write, but reading and writing are very different things. Still, it would be hard to write and write well if one didn’t read, and if you weren’t just a little bit in love with the written word.
When I got where I was going on that long car trip, I handed out a couple of my cards that have information about my book. This often happens when I’m asked, “What are you doing now that you’re retired?” One of the people I gave a card to, a relative, is a librarian, and said he would like to order a copy for his library. I said if he did, I would come and sign it. I wondered as I drove home what would be appropriate to write in the book to be shared in a library in a small town. I thought about all the wonders of reading and how much I have loved it, especially when I lived in a small town. I decided a good inscription might be, “Read every day, and you will always have adventure.”
Image: Captain Jack and Molydinum Wu helping us read. By Jonathan Hutchins.