Books

Yesterday in my government class, I read an excerpt from Lord of the Flies and then discussed the lesson it teaches us about anarchy. Like many people, I was forced to read the book in high school. It occurred to me how amazing it is that I still remember the book and its message so well some thirty-five years later!

Then last night I went to my monthly book club meeting. I started the club about four years ago. Members have come and gone, but at its core are about six middle-age ladies who share a deep love and appreciation of books. This month’s book was set in Israel. Of course, Israel has been very much in the news of late, and so the meeting became a discussion of Israeli history as it relates to current world events. I realized we were only able to discuss these things intelligently because we read so widely. I am currently reading Thomas Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem, and another lady just finished Unveiling Islam. The two of us had much to contribute to the conversation.

I have always loved books. Some of my earliest memories are of my mother reading to me from the pages of my Childcraft Encyclopedia. I’ve had that set of books as long as I can remember, and its red volumes still sit in their place of honor on my living room book shelf I’ve taken good care of them, so I could probably get real money for them on eBay, but I know I’ll never part with them. Those books kindled my childhood imagination with their nursery rhymes and stories of distant times and faraway places. I learned life lessons and much about human nature from the fables in one volume. A volume filled with animal stories and facts inspired my lifelong love of animals. I still remember a picture of Crater Lake in a more advanced volume, and I was so excited to actually go there last year largely because of it. Another picture of a car driving through a tunnel in a giant redwood created my as-yet-unrealized dream of seeing those magnificent trees. I hope that one day, I’ll read to my grandchild from those treasured books.

My parents encouraged my love for reading and made sure that books were always available. My mother enrolled me in a book-of-the-month club, and I looked for each book to come in the mail with great anticipation. I read all the Newberry and Caldecott awards books thanks to the club. I still remember reading A Wrinkle in Time and The Witch of Blackbird Pond. My favorite school activity was “going to the library,” and I probably read most of the books in it. In the summer, the library came to me. We lived out in the country and seldom went into town, but the library sent the book mobile out to us. It was a small library on wheels that parked right in our yard. I looked forward to its arrival more than I did that of the Watson man, who sold candy out of the back of his station wagon. I would stay in the book mobile as long as they would let me and always checked out the maximum number of books allowed. Of course, I read them all long before it returned.

When my grandmother came to live with us, she would sometimes chide me for always having “my nose stuck in a book.” I guess she worried about my social development. Or maybe she just wanted my attention. Anyway, books were my friends. Books allowed me to travel in a way that real life did not. Books taught me about life.

In the fifth grade, I read Misty of Chincoteague and fell in love with horses. I read every book about horses I could get my hands on. I drew horses, I dreamed about horses, and even started writing my own book about horses. Living on a farm, we did, in fact, have horses. That interest finally faded, but then I got into mysteries and devoured the entire Nancy Drew series. When I was twelve, I read Gone with the Wind. Thus began my lifelong fascination with the Civil War. In high school, I was assigned to write a term paper on Adolph Hitler, and so I read The Third Reich. As I read about the horrors of the Holocaust, I learned about the evil that man is capable of, and I learned how easily people can be led astray by a madman.

Once an aunt came to visit my family, and, knowing I loved to read, she brought me a stack of books she had found while cleaning out the house of another relative who had died. She didn’t realize, and my mother never knew, that the books included some detective novels with some pretty steamy romance and rather explicit sexuality. I got a different kind of education – and guilty pleasure – from reading those books!

Other books have had a more postitive impact on my life. The Bible is at the top of that list as I’m sure it is for most practicing Christians. As a young teenager I was greatly influenced by Catherine Marshall’s Christy. The story of the young girl going to teach and witness to the poor Appalachian people instilled in me the desire to “make a difference” in the lives of others, and probably had much to do with me becoming a teacher. More recently, Newt Gingrich’s book, To Renew America, inspired me to teach history just as he did.

Other books that had an impact were Little Women, Animal Farm, Wuthering Heights, War and Remembrance, Exodus, and so many more. Neville’s On the Beach gave me my first glimpse of the Apocalypse. 1984 taught me and countless others to fear Big Brother.

to be continued…