Dan’s working late tonight, so I did Damian’s entire bedtime ritual myself tonight. Including the part where a parent lies down with him and tells him a story. Dan makes up the stories. Damian and I agree that I can just tell him real life stories. Here’s tonight’s:
I didn’t learn to read until I was six and in first grade. The summer before I started first grade, I asked my mom to play with me but she was too busy reading her book. I got mad and told her I would never learn to read. She laughed and said I needed to know how. So I said “Okay, well, I’ll only read things like street signs and directions and stuff. Nothing for fun.” And ran off to play.Well, then first grade started and I learned. We didn’t have fun books to start with, just Run Spot Run and See Spot Run. I got tired of reading about Spot the Dog, so I started looking at our books at home. And I started reading them. Go Dog Go, the Seuss books, Maurice Sendak. And I loved it. I loved it so much I started reading all the time. When I was a little older, I’d carry a book to school and read in between classes (and in class, too, I’d secrete a book in my desk and read it while the teacher was talking, but I didn’t tell Damian that). I brought books everywhere. On the subway. To the movie theater so I could read before the movie started. Walking down the street. I always had a book with me the way you (Damian) always have a frog. Reading was like becoming someone else, living their life and doing what they did. I felt like I was with Max, like I was King of all the Wild Things, or like I was the bunny in Goodnight Moon, looking around my room at night or like I was Dorothy in Oz, meeting the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion and falling asleep in the poppies. I loved having a story in my head. That’s why I became a writer, so I could always have a story in my head, one I was telling. I still love reading and I still love books and now I love writing too. It’s all about stories.
I don’t care if Damian becomes a writer like me. In many ways, I’d rather he didn’t. It’s a difficult road. But I do hope he takes after me in his love of books. I think he will. I think maybe he already does.
Posted by Tamar at March 29, 2004 09:34 PM