It Took a Love Affair

                  My daughter was the best baby in the world.  She just was.  And so, on her 1^st birthday we all looked forward to her perfect baby cuteness growing and maturing into perfect toddler cuteness.  But she had a different plan.  Bella’s 1^st birthday was the day that her father’s wish came true; my little spit fire came out of her cocoon. 

                One of the most wonderful and trying things about little girls is their tendency to be verbal, and to do so very early.  Bella was very verbal, very early.  She could tell you anything she wanted and how she felt about it and why.  NO guess work with her.  And so I naturally thought, partly due to the fact that my first born was a boy, she would be a reading savant.  I had visions of her as a three year old being able to understand those words I would spell out loud to Chris, you know, the typical parents’ Morse code that is used in every preschool child’s presence.  I also felt badly for her brother.  Poor Jack would be surpassed by his sister‘s early reading. 

            But a funny thing happened with Bella.  She picked up a pencil and paper as a toddler, but not to write letters.  She drew, and she colored.  She painted and sculpted.  Her world was all about what she could create.  Reading was not even a thought for her as a preschooler.  She loved being read to, but never showed any interest in wanting to read herself.  She just wanted to make things.

            I was not worried about Bella’s disinterestedness in reading and writing, just a little surprised.  And so we let Bella work with her hands and she loved it.  Year after year went by and the books remained on the shelf while the paint, beads, and paper littered her bedroom floor and every table in our home. 

            When Bella turned ten I began to get anxious.  Will she ever read and write beyond a beginner’s level?  What should we do? 

            We tried many different strategies to get Bella to love the printed page, but nothing seemed to help.  We continued to surround her with good literature, hoping the beauty and wonder of a good story would lure her into reading.  Nope, not,Bella!  And I began to feel like we were the only family in the world with a now eleven year old who did not like to read. 

Chris in front of one of our beloved "stacks".

            Then I ran across an article written by a well- known children’s author in the doctor’s waiting room.  In this author’s true confessions he spoke of his own ten year old son who did not like to read.  I immediately felt his pain!  God bless this man!  I wanted to know, what did he do?  And as I read I realized he would not take “no” for an answer.  No matter how long it took, he would keep putting good books in front of his son.  Eventually, it would have to take.  And it did.  No special program or formula, just good books, for a good chunk of time, every day.  That is all he did.  I felt empowered!  If he could do it, then so could I!    

            I let me daughter know that we would all be reading good stuff every day.  She was not impressed but went along with the new plan.   I waited for the change to come.  Weeks and months passed with no monumental change in her attitude toward reading.  I began to give up.  Maybe she would be one of those, who just read when they have to and not for pleasure.  I shuddered.   

            And so, as her twelfth year was looming on the horizon, we trudged through her school work as if dragging an iron ball behind us.  Each reading assignment was a chore.  Then, for some odd reason, she got it in her head that she would like to read Anne Frank.  I discouraged her as much as I could. “Good, all the more reason for me to read it, Mom.” And so I agreed on one condition.  She could read Anne Frank as long as she committed to finishing it.  I knew the “wines” would come very quickly with this choice, and I wanted her to push through the slow beginning in order for her to know that she could read a book of this caliber.  She agreed.

            Within a week she was begging me to read something different.  But I did not give in to her request.  She realized she would have to finish what she had started if she was ever going to read anything else in her life, and so she kept at it.  Week after week she read Anne Frank.   Then I found her reading on her own without being told.  She began talking to me about what she had read and how it made her feel.  She was identifying with Anne.  Bella was being pulled into the story and was liking it!  After a long, slow reading of Anne Frank, Bella had come full circle.  She ate, slept, and breathed the book.  She was hooked. 

Bella at the Book Plate

            She reminded me of someone who had just fallen in love.  And so she had, with a book.  Then she asked me what else she could read and so I pulled one of my favorites off of the shelf and put it in her hands.  She read this one without much prompting.  This time she really liked the book and wanted to read more by the same author.  The domino effect had begun.  One good book gave her the confidence to try it again, and again, and again. 

            If you had told me two years ago that my daughter would be holed up in her room for hours each day reading books, I would have choked on my coffee.  But that is exactly what has happened.

            A few months ago, my daughter found out that she too could express herself with words, not just through the visual arts, and she began to write.  She would write a page or two of a story she had begun to form in her mind on paper or in a journal.  Eventually, she started typing on the computer and saving her little stories.   Then she decided that what she really needed in order to be a better writer was her own typewriter.  That’s right, a typewriter.  No computer or iPad, just a typewriter please.  I thought this would be a passing phase, but it became more and more important to her and I began to give this idea some real thought. 

            As I was walking through a second hand shop one day, my eye spotted an old typewriter in its case.  I asked to try it out and behold, it worked!   A couple of weeks later we both traveled to the second hand store to see if the old machine was still there.  When Bella turned the corner in the store, her eye caught sight of the typewriter  and she just stood still.  I knew then it was coming home with us. 

Bella and "Max", her typewriter.

            Now we hear the typewriter at all hours of the day.  We have all received typed letters and notes.  And she has begun a new story on her typewriter, the longest one to date. 

            I am remembering my little one year old girl, and all of the words she had stored up in her little life span, spilling them out all over the place.  Now, as she is on the cusp of young adulthood, words are still gushing out, but this time they are coming through her fingers and seeping into her mind. 

            And her older brother, well, let’s just say, we had nothing to worry about.  Jackson reads far more than I ever hoped to at his age. 

Jackson reading to Elias, two years ago.

              My children amaze me.  I am learning to let them be and give them the tools they need to learn and grow.  In time, they take things in and make them their own.  I am watching them form a life-long habit of reading real books, of writing deeply and thoughtfully, and of learning how to express themselves in this crazy world.  

             May they meet their generation with a passionate desire to know the truth, to embrace the beautiful, and to tell a dying world that there is a hope that never disappoints.   Read on my children.  Read well, read deeply.  Your very lives may depend on it.  

~Your Fellow Sojourner

 Notes on the Art of Poetry

by Dylan Thomas

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
In the world between the covers of books,
Such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,
Such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,
Such and so many blinding bright lights,
Splashing all over the pages
In a million bits and pieces
All of which were words, words, words,
And each of which were alive forever

In its own delight and glory and oddity and light.