A trilling whine resonated through the house. I HATE READING
My parents must have heard this from my mouth a thousand times. Learning to read and Phonics (c) were not my friend. I must have been a Sophist in a past life. I love to argue that words written down could not possibly be correct or as important as words spoken. Frustrated parents, as they are wont, skipped over the long and difficult road of "TEACH ME TO READ" with beginners’ books and started looking for books that would interest me. They finally succeeded with Maniac Magee. The story of a young boy who runs ON train tracks and sleeps with Yaks (the furry four legged kind) and can untie any knot, but is allergic to pizza. I didn’t have very much in common in a traditional sense, with a boy who lives on his own and is allergic to pizza. But emotionally and in my fantasies I had no trouble viewing myself as the protagonist.
Johnny Hangtime was the next book I remember, and still treasure. This story is based on the exciting life of a young stunt double. What kid wouldn't want to get paid to jump off things and roll down stairs!! Concrete stairs are more pay than carpeted stairs.
These characters spoke to me in ways that boring Reading List books couldn't. They were about boys {I'm obviously a girl now, but my father raised me to be active in a way not specific to a gender} who tried to live outside limits. Always pushing themselves. With Magee, he pushed cultural and social limits of the neighborhood he discovered, and he has a friend with the same nickname as my favorite candy bar. Johnny lives the double life, a normal bullied kid, but secretly he has a perfect secret. I could relate to living differently than the kids down the block.
Once I got an interest it was easy to keep me hooked when my parents took me to an awesome book store. Books-a-Million was wonderful. They had a train built of wood with a small TV and it ran kids movies like Veggietales or Loony Tunes. I remember the day I found out that I could pries the cubbyhole open and change the VHS inside. But there were also rows of seats where you could take a book off the shelves and read them. It was great! Not as boring as a library or as strict and I could take a break and play with the toy sets or try to find a book about lions with my sister. The books are arranged in easy to find sections. All the kids books are in one place. And the best part is... after an hour you can read another one.
If you want to get a kid interested in reading, find something they like in a toy or a characteristic they portray, and then a book with about it. That is what my GrandPa did, he made a book (fill-in-name) story. My brothers’ was about sports and mine was about Beckey's Ark (not Noah).
Around puberty I must have realized that as a girl I was different than the boys I enjoyed reading about. This change also coincided with a move overseas. So I tried a new genre. Royal Diaries. My first was about Nzinga the Warrior Queen of Matamba in 1624. A young woman who wants her father to notice her.
My favorites include Mary Queen of Scots, Eleanor of France, Cleopatra VII, Anastasia of Russia, and Marie Antoinette.
Though based on real events, I realized that these were fiction. I enjoyed the sense of realism in the voice of these young girls growing into power and dealing with their trials, it gave me a hope for my own life. I believed that if Marie Antoinette can survive being married at 14 to a man she doesn’t know I could survive HighSchool.
Once I outgrew the age group 13-16 it was easy to find my next step in imaginative fiction. Piers Anthony, Philip Pullman, and I capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. Now that I understand the different layers in reality exist I could learn things using fictional settings and information in novels. Books are no longer burdens to live through. They are a doorway, a highway to possibilities and opinions that I cannot experience myself. I’ll never be a 15 year old boy living on my own. But I can empathize a bit more with my younger cousins. I can even get them hooked on one or two of my favorites.
After a few years I now read 700 page novels quite easily, in a day or two. I'm reading autobiographies, war stories, historical documents, and non-fiction stories for fun. I’m even enjoying reading my books for university classes. Who knows what I may learn next. My favorite books will be from my childhood.
And I still cannot pronounce words correctly.
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