I recently read a story about two bibliophiles who fell in love over their love of books. Some of their dates were even at a library! The man ended up proposing by leaving a note in a book for his girlfriend. What a fantastic tale!
This struck home as last week was Valentine’s Day (or Singles’ Awareness Day, depending on your status), a day that’s not high on my list of favorites, even though I very much love my wife.
One of the things Michelle and I share is that same love of books. The pile of “to read” materials never seems to decrease. Add in the many comics I read, and the novel list might never lessen.
I’m currently reading a book by Jon Hassler called Grand Opening. If you’re at all familiar with Hassler, you know that many of his novels deal with life in small-town Minnesota. This book is about a family that moves from Minneapolis to a small town by the name of Plum, somewhere in the nebulous regions between Winona and Rochester. (I did a Google search, just in case it was some town I’d never heard of, but the closest I found was Plum’s Neighborhood Bar and Grill in St. Paul.) This family buys a small grocery store and tries to make a go of it as World War II is winding down. In addition to that conflict, there is religious drama in town between the Catholics and Lutherans. It’s good reading.
Michelle read the book first. We don’t always read the same materials, but there are some that we share and eagerly await as the other one finishes it, so we can discuss and pontificate. Those of you who enjoy reading understand this idea; a book shared heightens the enjoyment.
I attempt to carry this into my classroom. I’m a realist: many of my students don’t enjoy reading and wouldn’t read if I didn’t demand it. I ask for one book a quarter, which really isn’t much. This is in addition to any whole-class novels that everyone reads.
Some of my 7th graders just finished one of those, A Long Walk to Water, a great historical fiction novel about two people growing up during different time periods in Sudan. This book was recommended by another teacher as a real attention-grabber, so I tried it out a few years ago. The results have been tremendous! Kids seem to really be drawn into the story and are eager to see what happens next.
I had one student in particular who had a fabulous experience with this book. He has admitted to me to not being much of a reader. However, last quarter I had helped him pick out a book, and he told me when he finished that it was hard to put down and might have been the best book he’d ever read! Wow!
I’ll be honest. One of the best feelings as an English teacher is when a student tells you how much they liked a book you picked out for them. Another student read The Book Thief last quarter, one of the top five books I’ve ever read. Not only did she thank me for the recommendation, but she told her friend that she needed to read it now!
Back to the first student, though. He found me the morning after he finished Long Walk and wanted to talk about the ending; he couldn’t wait for class to talk about it! He was shocked by the ending and was smiling the whole time we talked. I loved it!
Sharing a good book is marvelous! Trying to help others find a love of reading is a great feeling when it’s successful. This doesn’t always happen. Or at least it doesn’t happen right away.
Occasionally, I have a former student come back to visit, who will tell me about how much they fought reading while in my classroom. However, they finally found something they really enjoyed and have since taken off on spending more and more time with books.
One of my great friends from high school was one of those. He may not have read a single book in high school, but like a number of my own students, he managed to fake his way through book reports and projects. There came a time in his life where he was unemployed and had a lot of time on his hands. He decided he might as well try reading some books and picked out some biographies of sports stars he liked. He called me up shortly after that, talking about how he was hooked and amazed how he never knew about these great books.
That’s always stuck with me as I see more and more kids like he was. This is why I strive to find at least one great book each year for each of my students. One never knows when that chord will be struck and a love will be kindled. The love of books, once the match is struck, is one that will never disappear. Your tastes may change, but decoding those words in all their marvelous combinations will forever be a treasured memory.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is logodaedaly, which means a skill in using or coining words, as in, “He found that his logodaedaly increased exponentially based on the number of books he read.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!