The Gift of Reading

I got the chance to help with a wonderful birthday party at work recently. I haven't been in charge of somebody else's party since I worked at a video arcade nearly twenty years ago and I never thought I would be in charge of one at a library. It was fun. I got to help decorate. We hung posters, we inflated balloons, we popped balloons (I thought that one was getting a bit too full,) we learned about international birthday customs, we had music. A fairly typical birthday party.

Except that the guest of honor had been discussing plans with her mother. They talked about how much stuff they already had and thought perhaps gifts for a charitable cause would be better than a bunch of Squinkies or another doll. This seven-year old girl asked her mom, "What about the library? Could we give them books for my birthday?" It turns out that she has loved the library since she was just a baby and felt strongly that she should add to the collection she loves to check out. So she did. And it was wonderful.

It was wonderful to hear what the children had to say about the books they had chosen to give, about what made them special. It was wonderful to receive over three dozen books to add to the collection. But most of all it was wonderful to see a little girl and her friends thinking about how they could help the community, about what they could do to make it a little bit better for their having been there. It was the nicest party I've ever helped host and she insisted that it was indeed a very happy birthday.

Trade Off

I love reading, always have. Many mornings my harried mother would try to rush me along through breakfast. I would be at the table with my cereal, lost down the rabbit hole with Alice or wandering through Wonka's wonderful world. Frustrated, my mother would decree, "No books at breakfast!" and I would reluctantly place my bookmark and set the story aside. Assured that I would now be able to eat at a more reasonable pace, she would resume her morning preparations only to return and see my cereal getting soggy as I read the latest escapades of the World War I flying ace, zooming through the air in his Sopwith Camel. "Enough Snoopy, no more comics. Eat!" and away went the newspaper.

Her bustling would begin anew and she knew that, finally, I would finish breakfast and we could head out the door for school... until she heard me ask, "Mommy, what's malt-o-dex-trose?" "Well, break it down. Dextrose comes from the.. wait a minute. Where did you get that word?" To which I would inevitably reply, "it's right here in the ingredients. There on the back of the box." With an exasperated sigh she would turn the box around, lay it flat on the table and declare breakfast to officially be over and out the door we went. I often told her she would have had less frustrating mornings if she had not taught me to read, but she decided a little morning rush was a small price to pay for literacy. I see it in my own children and am inclined to agree.