A "Stand" for Reading

Yesterday, as part of World Book Night, I handed out 20 copies of "The Stand" by Stephen King.  It's one of my favorite books.  I have great memories of reading it aloud - yes, all 1000+ pages - to my future husband as we completed our graduate research in Venezuela.  We hung from hammocks during the heat of the day, arms and legs lazily swaying, when little else could be done and entered the world that King created.

So I was the perfect person to present this book to people who maybe didn't consider themselves big readers.  Who might be kinda intimidated by the sheer size of the book.  It's big, no doubt about it.  When I attended the reception last week to pick up my box of books at A Real Bookstore, my box was bigger than everyone else's.  By a lot.  And heavier.  I made one of my strapping young sons carry it to the car.

I anticipated having to convince people to take the book, or having people reject my offer because they didn't believe anything to actually be free.  My experience was quite the opposite.

I hauled the box to the back of my car in the morning before I tackled a long list of errands.  First on my list was getting the air conditioning on my car checked.  It took about an hour and, during that time, I worked up the nerve to ask the guy behind the desk if he was a reader while I was paying.  "No, not really," he admitted.  "Mostly just magazines and stuff."

"Well," I said.  "Tonight is World Book Night and I'm a Book Giver and I have 20 copies of one of my favorite books.  Would you want one?"

He paused.

"It's Stephen King," I added.

"Oh!  Well, sure.  I'll take one.  I've been wanting to read more," he admitted.

"Great!"  And I raced out to the car to get not one, but two copies.

"Don't be scared by how long it is," I told him as I came back inside.  "It's really, really good."

He laughed as he accepted the copy I handed him.

"Is there anyone else here that you think might want one?" I asked him.  At that moment, another employee emerged from behind the counter.

"Let's both read it," the one said to the other.

I smiled.  "I hope you like it as much as I did," I said as I walked back outside to my car.

Stopping by the bank, I momentarily confused the manager who wanted to know how he could help me.  "By taking one of these books," I explained.  "You guys were so nice to us when we opened our account, I thought of you when I had these books to give out."

His face was flushed.  "That is so nice of you!"  His coworker listened from a nearby desk.  "Can I have one, too?" he asked.  I happily passed out three more copies before making my way to the unemployment office in the same strip mall.  This was the place that I said I would go when I applied to be a book giver.  Recently unemployed a few months back, I was thinking about how much more time I had to read when I didn't have a job.  And how everyone's in the same situation when they lose a job.  I wasn't sure how it would be received, but I was going to stand by what I said I'd do.

I approached the office receptionist who asked, "How may I help you?"

"You guys help people all day long," I began.  "So I wanted to stop by here today because I'm giving away free copies of one of my favorite books, Stephen King's 'The Stand' for World Book Night.  It's just to encourage people to read.  Would you like a copy?"

She took the book I handed her.  "Sure!  I've been trying to find something for my teenage daughter to read - I want her to read more.  Would this be good?"  I told her my 13-year-old had just started it and loved it, that it was about good and evil, and that I thought any teenager would love it.  At that moment, a couple who had been filling out paperwork approached the desk and I offered them copies as well.  They were thrilled.  I continued to make my way around the room, quietly handing out copies of the book and explaining the purpose of World Book Night to folks as they sat at computers, job searching.  That can be a pretty discouraging process, so I like to think I brightened it up just a little bit.

This is how my day went.  It was like passing out candy or Christmas cookies.  I grinned at the grocery store when two young men who bag groceries all day gladly took copies and began arguing about who could finish it faster.   The girl at the cash register when I paid for my lunch acted like it was the best tip she'd gotten all week.

It was a great day.  I got to share a book I love with absolute strangers.  I like to think that they're all folding back the cover now, beginning that journey that begins every time we open a new book - a journey that is full of possibilities and worlds we might never imagine on our own.  And I helped that happen.

The authors and publishers who agreed to be part of World Book Night are an amazing group who truly appreciate the power of reading.  The 30 books that were selected to be given away this year are listed here.  I've read quite a few, but I'm going to work my way down the list until I've read them all.

 

A loud reader...

I am a firm believer in reading aloud.  Not just to babies and toddlers and elementary-aged children, but from cradle to grave.

I have great memories of piling into my parents' bed with my sisters, cuddling up between my parents, and listening to my dad read aloud from Journeys Through Bookland by Charles H. Sylvester.  He read really fast.  You had to pay attention, or you'd be lost.

My mom read aloud to us, too.  The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken had me leaning forward with anticipation as my mother's voice floated over my bed.  I remember crying as she read aloud from The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom - my first exposure to the Holocaust.  

It is probably no surprise that I carry on this tradition with my own boys and Husband.  As graduate students in Venezuela for a year, sleeping in hammocks and studying the monkeys and the fish from an island, we read Stephen King's The Langoliers out loud (from his Four Past Midnight collection) and Husband (then Boyfriend) was hooked.  Then we tackled The Stand.  Yes.  All 800 plus glorious pages of The Stand.  Did I mention there was no electricity out there on the island?  No TV?  There was no better way to spend the hot hours of siesta than to read aloud.  Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire came next, then Dean Koontz's Twilight Eyes.  It wasn't our choice to focus on horror, those were simply the paperbacks left laying around the apartment reserved for graduate students.  So we devoured them.  And they were good.

As a middle school and high school teacher, I read aloud to my students.  There are lots of English teachers out there, bolstered by research, that believe that hearing a work read aloud, and read aloud well, helps students to become better readers themselves.  So I would start the year by reading Dark Water Rising by Marian Hale aloud to my 7th graders.  This great author of historical fiction for young adults chronicles the 1900 Galveston Hurricane.  The beginning of school every year coincided with hurricane season, which gave this first read aloud a sense of urgency where I taught on the Texas coast.  They loved it.  It sometimes took a while for them to relax and enjoy being read to, but they were surprisingly well behaved.  They were allowed to sit on the classroom carpet and just listen.  And gradually, some of the most reluctant readers would race into class on Fridays (reserved for Read Alouds) and exclaim, "I can't wait to hear what happens!  We stopped at the best part last week!" And the inevitable follow up questions, "What other books has this author written?" and "Do we have them here in the library?"  Success.  

After seeing how effective reading aloud was with my middle schoolers, I didn't see any reason not to try it with my more world-weary 11th graders in U.S. History.  We read Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin  when studying the Civil Rights Movement and Jim Crow laws.  It was always quiet on Read Aloud days.  Some of them fell asleep - of course they did.  But some of them got to experience a book that they otherwise never would have read.  And they didn't have to struggle to do it.  It was an enjoyable experience.  And isn't that what reading is supposed to be?

When it was first announced that C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia would be adapted for the big screen, I made sure I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to my three boys before we saw the movie.  These books were made to be read aloud.  When the characters began to appear on screen, Hayden leaned towards me and said, "That's Lucy!" as soon as he saw the redhead appear.  Satisfying.

The boys and Husband and I have made our way speedily through The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.  We're waiting for Husband to return home to move on to the last book in the trilogy, Mockingjay.  And we cannot wait to go and see the movie based on the first book.  I showed the boys the official trailer that was released on Youtube.  And do you know what their reaction was?  "That's not what Katniss looks like!" and "She's supposed to be younger!" and "That can't be District 12's fence!"  So many images in their minds did not match up to what they were seeing on the screen.  But I also heard, "They got the train right, though." and "That must be Cinna!"  We're excited, can't you tell?  

As we wait for Husband to return (52 days at sea and counting...), we've turned to a book I discovered when I participated in the Association of Texas Professional Educators Book of the Month Club.

I cannot say enough good things about The Great Wide Sea by M.H. Herlong (check out the book's website).  It's on the 2009 Texas Lone Star Reading List.  My 7th grade classroom served as the Guest Readers for this amazing book, reading it and creating discussion questions.  (You can see a pic of some of my former students with the book here.)

I'm now questioning the wisdom of reading a shipwreck story while Husband is out there on a shrimp boat, but it is just so good.  Some parts get me so emotional that I choke up while reading.  The boys completely identify with the main characters in the story:  three brothers that have a hard time getting along.  We're almost done with it.  And Ms. Herlong?  If you're reading this?  Your book rocks and should totally be made into a movie.    

I'll continue reading aloud to my children, Husband and students.  Hell, I'll read aloud to anyone who will listen.  It calms me.  I enjoy it.  And the listeners seem to as well.  This is our family's bedtime ritual.  It has always been - we've just graduated from picture books to chapter books.  I highly recommend it.

As long as I'm making recommendations, here's a list:


Top 10 Middle Grade Books to Read Aloud

1.  Dark Water Rising by Marian Hale
2.  The Great Wide Sea by M.H. Herlong
3.  The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
4.  Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
5.  Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
6.  The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
7.  The Giver by Lois Lowry
8.  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
9.  The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
10. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

    

Finished!

I actually finished it Friday -- a few minutes before the twins got off the bus.  I was rushing to devour all words before hope of any silence vanished for the three day weekend.

It was amazing.  Well worth the 800+pages.  Well worth the time investment last week.
Well done, Mr. King.

I find myself thinking about the characters -- Jake and Sadie especially -- and the concept of "strings" of alternate futures/pasts colliding if we attempt to mess with the past.  And it makes me feel better somehow.  No regrets.  No mistakes.  Everything happens for a reason.  Or, as King put it, "Life turns on a dime."

And I learned a new word in this book:  obdurate.  As in, "The past is obdurate."  As in "unmoved by persuasion, pity, or tender feelings; stubborn; unyielding."

The past harmonizes.  I like that.  Now I notice these things - like the similarity between our very loved house in Alaska where we began our married life and our home now in Texas - where we begin again.

I like this poem by Philip Larkin.  The Trees.  I heard it mentioned on NPR in an interview with a classical pianist, Simone Dinerstein (link to the interview here).  She named her most recent album, "Something Almost Being Said", after this poem.

The Trees by Philip Larkin 

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief. 

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain. 

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.