One Step Foward, A Sweet One Back

My youngest child has started reading. This marks a milestone for me, because I literally did nothing to help him. Well, okay, sure. I buy books and make them available and talk about letters and why books are good and normal parent stuff like that. But, nothing compared to what his eldest sister, my first child, got from me.

I was on her like flies on...well, let's just say I worked with her on her letters and numbers and her learning. A lot. I wasn't crazy, just a stay-at-home mom with only one kid, and nothing but time on my hands. I was of course, as a new parent, surrounded by the requisite parenting books extolling the virtues of reading to your child. Who was I to break with tradition? I read to my kid. My kid liked being read to.

Years passed, two more great kids joined our family and suffice it to say by the time little man arrived, I was so over those parenting books. We spent all our time in the car getting from one sister's thing to the other sister's thing. We did not have that time on our hands. We got in our reading at night, snuggling.

So it is through time, patience and the blessing of fantastic teachers, that my son is reading. Yay! Someday I will climb atop my never-far-from-me soapbox to tell you why reading to your kids is a good practice. But for now, allow me this indulgence.

Reading and snuggling with my new reader delights me like little else. The light bulb of awareness, excitement and joy is intoxicating. We gather up a huge pile of "just right for me" books and settle in. Since he started reading, he has a new habit. He located two of his oldest baby blankets and spreads them ceremoniously over us before we read. I ask him, "Why do you want those blankets?"

He says, "Because they remind me of when I was a baby." Which is just plain sweet. (See also: how to melt mama's heart.)

I wonder if what he's doing is holding on to his baby self. The one who needs mama nearby, the one who can't do things for himself like big readers do. His blanket ritual has him straddling two worlds. I can't help but think his blankets and his books help him make a smooth leap into moving farther and farther away from me. It's part of life, but I'll hold onto his books and blankets and him for as long as he'll let me.

Should Have Bailed

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My eldest daughter learned in third grade if you start a book and don't like it, it's okay to "abandon it." Most adults I know have a really hard time with this concept. We feel like once we start, we have to finish, regardless of how we feel about the book. Like there's some karmic literary retribution or fail for letting go of a book that just isn't doing it for us.

So, I'm in this book club, and I'm open to reading lots of different genres and usually agree to whatever the ladies present. Not this past month. The selection was a Pen-Faulkner winner, written by an author who's won accolades for her work, work which has appeared in many well-respected publications. Her writing was short listed for other prestigious awards. The ladies in the group who had read the book gave it high praise.

Hated it. Hated it. Visceral reaction, dread in the pit of my stomach, joy when I realized a conflict would prevent me attending the discussion. I did not want my disdain for the book to outweigh those who had a much different reading.

Two chapters in, I told my daughters I didn't like the book I was reading. Eldest said, "Abandon it." And laughed when I told her I would not. My reasons were sound. I wanted to give the book a shot. I had agreed to read it along with the other club members. It was important to try different things. She's twelve; I wanted to show her how to finish something unpleasant. The literary equivalent to holding my nose to swallow the over-boiled spinach.

I read the last pages of the book last night. The ending was as improbable as the rest of it. Big surprise. The characters remained hollow, without human depth or strength of character.

I could have stopped reading. I could have abandoned it. It would cost me nothing to quit in the middle. I mean, it's a voluntary book club and I'd be letting down exactly no one.

Except.

I wanted to finish the book. I wanted, so much wanted, the writer to finally give the characters some emotion, some real thought, some reason for their odd decisions. I kept thinking, "okay, surely now she's going to tell us why this diva is in love with the man who doesn't talk." But even her "in love" was ashes in my mouth.

I wanted to finish because I thought, "I must be missing something." I'd refer to the front of the book to verify I hadn't imagined the little sticker announcing it a winner of the Pen-Faulkner. Yep. Still there. I'd look at the soft focus author photo and think "well, she's a pretty enough woman. She looks like a nice person." I felt connected to her, like I didn't want her to fail. Clearly the awards committee connected with the book and the author because she won the praise. I was rooting for the book.

And yet. Hated it. Maybe that's okay. Maybe there's no bigger lesson here. It's okay that I do not agree with the critics. It's okay that others liked, even loved, the book. I could have let it go, but I chose to stick it out. I'm glad I did. It was not wasted time. It was time I learned what doesn't work for me in a book, how I responded to the content and the writer, how I thought of the book in terms of communal response. Even though every single page made me cringe, I'm glad I held my nose and choked it down.