National Young Readers Week –

“The Impact Childhood Reading Has Is Never Lost”

How many of you were childhood readers? Do you still remember those stories? Perhaps even have those torn and well worn books to this day?  Maybe, if you are older,  you might have passed them on to your children or intend to?  No matter your age,  you might just plain cherish the stories and the memories they hold.  For me and mine? Its ‘The Little Engine The Could’ by Watty Piper read countless times with its refrain of “I think I can, I think I can” rolling around and around in my head at bedtime, probably having more of an impact than I could ever guess at. Then there’s ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ by Margery Williams a story that I and my daughter never grew tired of with its message of love no matter the odds, and ‘Goodnight Moon’ by Margaret Wise Brown, a book we needed several copies of as book after book wore out. At the top of our best loved pile? That would be ‘Charlotte’s Web’ by E.B. White, a favorite not only of mine but of many of my authors, co-reviewers and friends.  What brought on all these scattered thoughts and memories? A very special week.

It’s National Young Readers Week, a whole week set aside to celebrate and help promote reading in young children.  In 1989,  the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress created National Young Readers Week to help schools recognize the joys and benefits of reading.  Why?  Because they knew that the key to the mind, to the imagination is literacy and books.  Nothing can open a mind to immeasurable possibilities like a book. Nothing else can expand their horizons, make them wonder and explore further than a great story.  National Young Readers Week was born to open children’s minds to creativity and helps expand their general knowledge through books.

I have a book blog with 12 book reviewers. All we do is talk books from author interviews to writing to book reviews and all things book centric.  And one of my favorite questions to ask the authors worldwide in their interviews is “Were you huge readers as children?  Were you read to as a child?” And even more importantly “Did you think that all that reading as a child impacted you as a author today?”  Not surprisingly, almost all were big readers as children (although not all were read to), most could remember their favorite stories, and again not a shocker, some even started keeping diaries as kids.  But reading when young?  That does seem to be the key.  Stories, no matter the genre or at what age,  jumpstarted their imaginations.  Over and over they told me the books took them places that thrilled them, enthralled them and yes maybe even scared them a little.  Mysteries, science fiction, action suspense, animal stories, pirates, fairy tales…all gobbled up in the need to know more.  Books made them look outside themselves, made them peer inside into their hearts, made them think larger, made their world bigger and that carried them forward. It helped make them takes chances.  Learn to write stories and become the writers they are today.

My mother was a 4th grade schoolteacher, one of the most popular with a beloved reading corner. It had a rocking chair and a worn braided rug that the children sat on.  There the kids gathered, listening Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain,Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, Black Beauty by Anna Sewel,  and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1) by Roald Dahl, just a few of the stories the children couldn’t get enough of.  There were series, and biographies and requests,  those too.  Even now her students come back to see her, some with their grown children in tow. They mention that rocking chair and those stories and how much that time in class meant to them.  And they want to know if she still has that rocking chair. No I do, keeping it safe with all those memories intact and warm.

I have always felt strongly about childhood reading, mostly because for a while I couldn’t do it.  I was read to as a child but up until 2nd grade couldn’t read very well. Poor eyesight turned out to be the culprit and once that was solved, I started reading like someone starved for stories.  All of Marguerite Henry’s books from ‘Misty of Chincoteague’ to other stories like “The Black Stallion by Walter Farley, dog stories like Big Red or Old Yeller by Fred Gipson, mysteries like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, loved them all even as I moved on to gothic romance, science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction.  I needed more stories, lugged books around me like other people did their music.   My shelves groaned under the weight of books collected (still do) then ebooks came and helped lighten the load.  That love has been passed onto my daughter, whose shelves groan under her own books, some of them purloined from books we shared and read together.

I asked several of my reviewers about their experiences growing up as children. One in europe grew up on Grimm’s Fairy Tales, even listened to them with her brother on tape. She admits Hansel and Gretel scared her to death! But during a library’s annual flea market she found a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim.  There the idea of India and an exotic life took hold in her mind.  Being 10, her parents weren’t agreeable to the idea of her going off to live life like Kim but in her words “There was never a time in my life when I didn’t read. I read countless books during my childhood, from every genre. But few books still have an influence on what I read these days, so Kim will always hold a special place in my heart and I’ll never get rid of my copy, even if it really does look its age.”  Another of my reviewers came to books through the library at the 3rd grade.  Her favorites then?  They remain her favorites to this day.  In her words…”

“I first discovered the library in third grade, I never stopped reading. I haven’t changed much from when I was a kid either… I loved the same things. Dogs, sci-fi, fantasy and lgbt pairings. As a younger child I adored stories with dogs–these are the ones that come to mind right away. There are more if I were to really check. (The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford. White Fang by Jack London,
Call of the Wild by Jack London, Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight, Big Red by Jim Kjelgaard and the others in the series Irish Red and Outlaw Red.”

This week in so many school system’s around the nation they are “Booking It”, putting aside other routine plans and picking up books and reading.  Maybe scheduling class time and lesson  plans around a certain book to better help other student understand it. What books do you recommend and love  best?  Which books have you brought with you into adulthood?   Can you picture the  books? There in your memory? Or by something greater?  By the impact that that book and all the ones that followed made on you as an adult.  By the  love of reading it fired within you,  the expectation of something new that awaits around the next paragraph or page. That sense of wonder that found its way to you and never left once you read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis or The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings #1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien or whatever the book it may have been for you.  The endless possibilities you never thought about and now couldn’t stop thinking of, yes that was but one long lasting impression that a big novel has left behind, one of many.

Well, that’s it for me.  I have books to read and review, and lots of writing as well.  In some ways, I love that there are so many readers starting off on a very rich and  wonderful new journey, one that will never stop, no matter your age.  Reading and books has no boundaries.  Books on tape, books to be listened to, bound books, ebooks, shared books, books for all ages and interest.  A world of books waiting to be explored.  Isn’t it marvelous?  And once started, once the need to read gets a hold of you, and it will, once your imagination is fired, your mind is set free, then anything is possible and you view growing up so very differently, with expectations that can forever change.

And it all started with “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”  Thank you, Watty Piper, wherever you are.

Happy Reading and Happy Young Readers Week.

Melanie

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

Those that continued the tradition of family reading to those that found it on their own through libraries, comic books, second hand stories or other avenues.

Did you continue to read on as a older child?  Discover the wilderness of Little House on the Prairie?  Marmie of Little Women?  The mysteries of Nancy Drew  and the Hardy Boys?  Maybe it was  Marguerite Henry’s books like Misty of Chincoteague and or other stories like the Black Stallion.