A Brief (and Possibly Inaccurate) Reflection on Why I Read (Part 1), by Dale Spindel

I envy the  librarian I know who recently mentioned   that she has kept a running list of every  book she has ever read since childhood.   As part of my own quest to figure out why I am attracted to certain types of books, I decided to take my own reader's stroll down memory lane and reflect on those books from childhood that have made an indelible impression on me.   

Age 6 -  The Books I Read To Learn How To Read The first books I can claim to have read independently and in their entirety are  "We Look and See," "We Work and Play," and "We Come and Go" from the Dick and Jane Series.  Dick and Jane's family bore almost no resemblance to my own in that we did not own either a cat or a dog, my father did not wear a suit to work, and nobody in my family had blond hair.   However, being the clumsy kid that I was,  I did relate to the picture of baby sister Sally getting her head stuck in the umbrella.   (Does anybody else out there remember that picture???)

Ages 6-7 -  Books That I Read for Sheer Pleasure Over and Over Again    Dr. Seuss classics such as The Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Cat Comes Back  and my own personal favorite,  Horton Hatches the Egg.   Even at this young age I could recognize literary greatness.  These books were fun but there was also an element of poignancy to Horton's theme of child abandonment that resonated with me.  You also have to admire Seuss' total thumbing of his nose at Darwinian principles of evolution - an elephant-bird, indeed.

Ages 6-11 - What I Read for Pleasure and to Pass the Time  Under the influence of my older sister, I became a voracious reader of comic books and spent many dimes and quarters from my allowance money on anything in the extended Archie series.  As a result, I probably suffered  irrevocable  emotional damage  relating to my inability to understand Betty's preference for Archie when it should have been obvious to anyone that Reggie was far better looking.   I'm not sure if I read Archie comics because I  liked them or because I thought I was supposed to like them. However, there was a sweet and more age appropriate  comic series  that I adored  called Sugar and Spike  that followed the adventures of a pair of  adorable babies who were able to talk to each other but who could not be understood by  grownups.   By about age 8, I also began reading Mad Magazine and it was here that I  began to learn about  such things as point of view and satire.  I found Mad to be wickedly funny,  acknowledging however  that as an eight year old   I had very little  understanding of most of the subjects being satirized.  

Ages 6-11- What I Read for School - I know that I read lots of books for book reports of both the oral and written variety; I am pretty sure that I  even did an oral report on Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Clock in 4th grade.   I also  remember reading  books by Beverly Clearly as well as  from a series in which each volume took place in a different country and followed the exploits of a set of twins who were born in that country.  I   read several books in the Danny Dunn series as well as one or two in a series with a young female protagonist  named "Honeybunch."   I don't remember loving any of these books.

Age 10 - The First Books I Read for an Emotional Connection -  Charlotte's Web was the first  book that made me cry because of the emotional connection I  formed with a character who later dies.   However,  it was only after reading Little Women that I  developed an unhealthy fascination with death, repeatedly rereading those chapters that described Beth's illness and eventual demise.  As a child, those chapters  were as scary to me as any horror story.

In most matters, my long term memory is pretty good, so I find it incredibly sad that, aside from comic books, there are so few books that I can actually remember from the first 6 or 7 years of my reading life.  Since I always identified myself as being a kid who loved to read, the question that looms large for me today is why almost nothing that I read  as a kid made any kind of lasting impression.  Is this a reflection of the sorry state of children's literature at mid-century or is it possible that  my ever increasing  mastery of the mechanics of reading was in and of itself  enough to keep me engaged?    (To be continued)

Changing the subject- There was an article in Tuesday's NYTimes discussing the impending January closing of the Barnes & Noble's near Lincoln Center.  The reporter observed that many of the B&N customers were there to buy coffee and snacks but  then left without actually buying any books, movies or CDs.   As a  book lover, I am  definitely  of the opinion  that the shuttering of any venue that dispenses books into the hands of the public is a bad thing.   However, might I at least  be permitted the tiniest bit of schadenfreude toward a  business model that was responsible for sending countless library boards scrambling to devote valuable library floor space to coffee shops without  having  the least bit of  understanding of what is required to open and maintain a retail food establishment?  (Helloo - foot traffic anyone?)  http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/barnes-noble-to-shutter-lincoln-center-store/

Not a lot of free time this past week - still reading Roth, listening to Coben and wishing I had the time right now to commit to the new Franzen.

Comments

[Sarah W]

I remember reading The Night They Stole the Alphabet in elementary school and being delighted and scared at the same time. I must have checked that book out every week . . . that and D'aulaires book of greek myths.

I secured a copy of the myths for my kids (yeah, right---I don't think my oldest was even a twinkle when I bought it), but I'm still looking for the other one.

And as a librarian, I like the library coffee shops in our two new buildings---I don't have to pack my lunch or go out for my caffeine charge. Of course, we aren't planning to retro-fit our main building, either. . .

[Carrie]

We had a similar literary path. Along with a lot of poetry, as read to me by my mom. Things like Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson and Little Boy Blue by Eugene Field and The Raven by Poe. She had a thing for darkness, I guess. Or she figured I did. But whether it was nature or nurture, I adopted those kinds of works into my own reading pretty early on. I had a fascination with them similar to your fascination with the Little Women death scenes.

[Barbara W.]

Amazing that you recall with such clarity books you read so long ago. I only remember the ones I still have in my bookcase!