Main Entry: read·er
Pronunciation: \ˈrē-dər\
Function: noun
Date: before 12th century
1 a: one that reads b: one appointed to read to others
Being an avid reader seems to be a part of my make-up. My mom read to me and my sisters most every night before bed. We got books for gift giving occasions and always had books to read around the house. All of sitting around with our nose in a book was not an unusual site. Does this behavior turn someone into an avid reader? I’m not sure but I know that it did it for me and my sisters. Each of us loves to read and in turn is passing that love of reading on to the next generation.
A recent discussion here about banning books made me think about my own childhood and books. I was allowed to read any age appropriate book from the school library or any book from the school library when you get right down to it. It was different on our trips to the large public library in town. Mom steered us to the section of books we could pick from and helped us select something. There was guidance offered but I can’t ever recall being told out right that I couldn’t read a particular book. Maybe that’s the difference having a reader for a parent makes. My mom read some of the books that we read. To see the content first hand, to be ready to answer questions we might have. She was very involved in that way. I will always be grateful for the time and effort my mom made on behalf of my sisters and me when it came to books and reading.
I know some very lovely people, smart, accomplished people, who don’t read for pleasure. They say that reading for work or school has taken the joy out of it for them. With our busy lives and being pulled in multiple directions I know it’s hard to carve out time to sit down with a book. But a lot of us still take the time. We take the time to pass the joy of reading to our children. What made you a reader? Or if you’re not a reader, why not? Do you think reading to/with children is important? Please share your stories. I can’t wait to read them.
Related posts:
Dakota Complaints Map
Dakota Inmate Dashboard
Loading ...
Lazy Lightning Gear
BPAC Financials Archive
April 26th, 2010 at 10:47 am
I would have considered myself a reader between the ages of 19-20 when I sold pull tabs Th-Sun for the Valley Hockey Assn in Stillwater. Sitting at a bar, working (schlepping tabs to drunkards) and not being able to drink, I had plenty of time to kill. I would average two books a weekend, and got into the Grisham and Sandford novels. I also would read on week long boat trips or plane trips in recent history.
While I enjoy reading, I don’t enjoy reading many types of books. The local settings is what got me into Sandford novels, and the law aspect got me into Grisham, as at one point I had an application for WM Mitchell school of law in my hands.
Now, I have too many projects to just sit and read. If I did, I would end up getting distracted by a need to do or think about something else, as my mind rarely ever sits on one topic for more than 1 minute at a time..
I wasn’t read to much as a kid, but I don’t think that had any effect on my reading later in life.
I do usually keep a book around the house I work on getting thru, I certainly don’t have the drive to sit and read anymore, as I have this inner need to be doing something vs. sitting around.
April 26th, 2010 at 11:07 am
Growing up, we didn’t have a TV (early 70′s through to about 1982). My parents encouraged my brother & I to read, and we went to the library ALL THE TIME. There were some great librarians in the children’s section, and the library had great reading programs and summer reading contests for kids, etc. Both my brother & I read a lot of books.
Once we got a TV, I did read less, but didn’t give it up entirely. After college, I read still less, but didn’t give it up. I don’t read a lot these days, but I have a bookcase full of sci-fi books, and every now & then I grab Book 1 of a series and start reading it all over.
Honestly, I think my new iPad may encourage me to start reading again. I’ve already downloaded a couple of iBooks, and the fact that the entire Guttenberg project library is availble for free is pretty cool! 30,000+ books to choose from!
April 26th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
It’s been a little easier to get some reading done since I got my Kindle. I can just stick it in my bag and read when I find myself waiting somewhere or otherwise with down time on my hands.
April 26th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
1. Library’s summer reading program.
I remember being quizzed in the basement of the library, alone, about my week’s reading. They were not pleased that I found some book, in the kids’ section, about people who were taking pieces of crusty white wafers and somehow getting high from them. I don’t remember anything else about the book except that they moved it elsewhere in the library.
2. Book It program (sponsored by Pizza Hut)
I never cared for their pizza.
3. Books from our home library.
I had a lot of the Hardy Boys novels including some vintage copies in hardcover and paperback (the newer series at the time). I believe my parents still have these and I will be sure my son gets a crack at them. Maybe it’ll trigger his imagination as much as it did mine.
4. Lots of Stephen King and Michael Crichton.
The Stand, It, and The Shining are probably inappropriate material for an 8-9 year old but…
5. Lots of discarded books procured by my Uncle Phil at stores or libraries.
Many of these were Westerns and/or military novels. I was always confused why they had kissing and talk about cactus flowers and raging gun-like manhoods–whatever those were.
—
I still read a lot of different stuff to this day and I’m looking forward to two weeks of vacation this summer and lots and lots of time to catch up with the books I haven’t been reading this year due to school and the baby.
April 26th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Great post. I think of myself as a reader. I really enjoy a good book. I have a hard time making reading a priority. Right now I am reading 1776. That’s how far behind I am on my To-Read list! With kids and work I seldom feel like I can just sit and read. Although…my mom always had a book going. She raised 12 kids and she read everynight after supper. How come I have 3 kids and am 1/2 way through a 6 year old book?
Some of my fondest memories are of being read to. As an adult I find it even more amazing that with all those kids, my mom took the time to read to me.
There’s a lovely poem-“You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be—
I had a mother who read to me.”
(Strickland W. Gillilan, The Reading Mother.) So true.
I guess I can feel good about the effort I gave to give my kids a love of reading. I read to them daily and made books fun. One of my three is an avid reader.
April 26th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
As a kid I was a serious reader. Since graduate school, I feel like I don’t read as much. But really, I think I read differently. I read tons of blogs and news articles and cookbooks. The words I read a day are probably the same as pre-graduate school when I was reading a book a week, they are just in different places now. I don’ t know if that is good or bad.
April 26th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Hardy Boys for sure, we had the whole series. In high school, a group of us were ravenous Stephen King nuts, and read one after another book of his, switching from one person to the next after finishing one.
Most of the kids’ books my parents had have since been passed on to cousin’s kids, etc. They wanted to be sure they got read again!
April 27th, 2010 at 8:35 am
I was never a big independent reader in my youth. If school didn’t require, it I pretty much didn’t read it. That was until around 9th grade when a more studious friend gave me a coupon to join the Science Fiction Book club. I had started getting more into computer programming, and had been reading Byte magazine in the school library and Jerry Pournelle was a columnist for the magazine as well as a SciFi author. I took the deal, 5 free books (one of Jerry’s was on the coupon) and then one every month that you can either keep, and pay a minimal fee, or return. I never returned a book and didn’t cancel until year after high school. I have 2 boxes of sci fi books in my basement.
Granted, the subject matter was a bit limiting, but the breadth of authors and their styles was tremendous. By my last two years of high school, I’m certain that the reading how others wrote, the different styles, etc made any class with writing easy for me.
Back then (mid to late 80′s) I found myself to be an information hound. I would keep up with the news. I would keep up with the changes in technology, and I even setup a FidoNet node to track various computer science technologies. Then the internet, cable tv, 24 hour news etc showed up and I came to terms with it being too hard to know it all.
I still read quite a bit, though most of it is via unabridged audio books. If I’m reading one in my hand, I find it harder to set it down, and end up going to bed late way too often. Being able to read a book on a 5 hour drive to Iowa, or an afternoon of yard work really is great.
April 27th, 2010 at 10:03 am
i wasn’t much of a reader until later on in life. i enjoy it now. i like military history, ww2 pacific and ‘nam. there’s good authors out there that still haven’t over written themselves. i’m just finishing up a book called just cause, by john katzenbach(1992). we saw the movie(1995), thank you netflex, sean connery and laurence fishburn and i had to read the book to see what i missed. highly recommend both.
it’s NEVER too late to read to your kids or grandkids. we started with our grandkids almost when they could sit up. it pays off.
April 27th, 2010 at 11:59 am
I read a lot when I was younger. Boxcar Children, then Hardy Boys, then Mark Twain. I had a goal to read everything Mark Twain had ever written. I put together a catalog of every book I could find that he’d written. There were a few hundred titles with all of his short stories. I managed to get through quite a few of them before being derailed.
Now I read a lot, but I don’t often read books. I have close to an hour each way on the bus every day so it’s not that I couldn’t, but with blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc., I just don’t make the time. Half of the books I’ve picked up over the last few years haven’t really interested me either. That’s probably more of a problem with the books I’ve been picking up though.
Around the World in 80 Days remains my favorite.
Reading with children…it’s absolutely essential! My wife is already reading to our 10-week-old twins.
April 27th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
I discovered the bookmobile when I was in elementary school. I always checked out the maximum number of books that I could for the week. When I got a little older, I would ride my bike to the “real” library about 5 miles away. My basket was always filled to the brim. The greatest treasure that I found in 5th grade was a little book called “The Hobbit”. I have read that particular prequel and trilogy more times than I can remember. It has been very satisfying to see the books come to life as movies and not be disappointed. And even better is to pass the love on to my eldest. We attended the midnight showing of all the movies together.
April 30th, 2010 at 7:42 am
I almost forgot about the bookmobile. It used to park at a playground near our house and all of the kids in the neighborhood would head over. Is that program still around? I read Nancy Drew too. Some of the books were my mom’s and she passed them on to me and my sisters.
I really like the looks of the iPad e-reader program. There is no way I can justify the cost however. I would love to get one but I’ll have to wait until the first gen models are marked down. Someone here mentioned having an iPad. Is the e-reader function as nice as it seems? Does having a color screen make a difference? It seems it would be great for reading magazines.