Our Reading Journey
My father used to tell me the story about him putting me to bed one night with my favorite book, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. As I was the 4th child in as many years, he had probably had enough of this story. He tried to skip a few pages (yes, skip a few pages in a picture book that is maybe 20 pages long!) But I was too smart for him. I immediately knew what he was doing, and he had to start over from the beginning.
Fast forward about thirty years. When my children were small, I read to them almost every night. It was something I loved, and they did, too. It was a nice, quiet, peaceful end to a busy day. Snuggling together with my freshly bathed, sweet-smelling children, reading them a story. I usually read to each one individually, just to give them a little bit of one-on-one time after a hectic day.
I knew, at some point, my children would grow out of the reading-with-Mommy phase. Amazingly, they didn’t. In 2010 my mother brought me an article from The New York Times called A Father-Daughter Bond, Page by Page by Michael Winerip. It told the story of Jim Bronzina, who began a streak of reading to his daughter every night. After reading the article, my children and I decided to try it for 100 days. At the time, my son was in kindergarten and my daughter in 3rd grade.
While it was not much of a change since we still read before bed, we did have to establish some rules; well, maybe not rules, but guidelines. We absolutely had to read EVERY day. It could be picture books – especially on those Friday nights when I really couldn’t keep my eyes open to read aloud a full 10 pages of a chapter book; it didn’t always have to be at night; guest readers were allowed; and, except for vacations, each child would get their own reading time and book.
And, so, we began. . .
On Thanksgiving Day, 2018 we marked 2,000 days of reading - swapping pumpkin pie for book-themed cupcakes. On March 2, 2019, we celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday and 2,100 days of reading with an ice cream cake from Thomas Sweet in Princeton, NJ. I’m not sure I ever expected either of my children to tell me they wanted to stop reading; there were times, I’m sure, that they dreaded it. But it had become part of our day. We stopped the night before they each left for college, at 3013 consecutive days for my daughter and 4098 consecutive days for my son.
When COVID hit, we spent A. LOT. OF. TIME. together, and me asking if they were ready to read before bed was just another reason for them to be annoyed with me. During COVID, we shifted to reading downstairs instead of on my bed. Mostly because it was no longer bedtime reading; they were both in high school (or almost) and they went to bed much later than I did. (Perhaps I should have started having them read to me.) Our library was closed for most of early COVID, so we relied on our own personal library. I can’t remember exactly what books we read during those months, but we read.
About a year later, my daughter and I had started reading A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman. I had read it a few years prior and loved its mix of humor and heartbreak. The story of a curmudgeonly old man who softens upon meeting his wife,
“She talked as if she were continuously on the verge of giggles. And when she giggled she sounded the way Ove imagined champagne bubbles would have sounded if they were capable of laughter.”
When his wife dies, he becomes even more of a curmudgeon. But his neighbor shows him that he can still be a lovable, caring man. The parts with the neighbor made me laugh, while the parts about his wife made me cry.
During our reading of Ove, my father unexpectedly passed away. It was a shock, and I was heartbroken. One night we were reading a chapter about his wife. I would read to my daughter, cry, breathe, read more, cry more, breathe more. I could not get through one paragraph. To be fair, that’s pretty much what my days had been like since my dad died. Since we were reading in the family room, we were all together. My son just kept looking at me. Finally, in all his 15-year-old wisdom, said, “Mom, stop! You can’t do this!” I would like to say that he took over reading to his sister, but instead, he went and got Fancy Nancy (by Jane O’Connor, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser), a story full of happiness, glitter, pink and innocence. I blubbered my way through that read aloud, too. But, still, we read. Four years later, we laugh about that night. My daughter ended up loving Ove, and we have that read-aloud memory, and millions more of my dad.
I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of all of us for continuing and reaching this milestone. The list of books is impressive, if I do say so myself. We’ve read Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, The Martian, The Godfather, several Harry Potter, and all 14 Wizard of Oz books. I bet both my children can recite all the Bear Snores On books (by Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman). Sometimes, my mother filled in as the ‘guest reader.’ Once, we were travelling and we knew we would not make it home before midnight, so my kids read to each other on the plane! It was that important to them to continue.
Reading aloud doesn’t have to stop just because a child learns to read on his own. The variety and sheer number of books we’ve shared is incredible. More importantly, reading together shaped my children as students, friends, and people. It gave us closeness, consistency, and joy.
For that inspiration, we thank Jim Bronzina and his daughter, Kristen - now Alice Ozma, who wrote The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books we Shared. (Alice chose her new name from Princess Ozma in L. Frank Baum’s Oz series, which makes perfect sense after reading all fourteen books ourselves!) And I thank my mother - grandmother extraordinaire - for showing us the article that started it all.
My father may have tried to skip a few pages of Goodnight Moon, but he gave me the love of reading aloud. I passed that on to my children, page by page, night after night.
Children love being read to. Take 5 or 10 extra minutes and share a story with them.
Happy Reading!
