a book on every bed and other things . . .

One of the women in my on-line group posted this article the other day and I can't get it out of my brain. I love books and think everyone should have the opportunity to love them too. Know someone little? Wrap a book and give it to them for Christmas. It doesn't have to be new. Just wrap and give.

And this started me thinking about books and my kidlet. Oh, this is going to be one long post. You can give up here if you'd like. No hard feelings.

I read to my kidlet every night. It was a routine. And especially when I had to go back to work when she was two, it gave us precious time together. I would read and she would turn the pages when asked. And since I traveled a bit, I made a tape of her favorite Dr. Seuss books for her to "read" while I was gone. To make sure she knew when to turn the pages, I had her ring a little bell at the right time. At the turning of the first page, you can hear her ringing the bell like mad.

Although we read every night, I made no attempt to teach her to read. I had no idea how to approach it and decided it was best left to the experts. About half way through kindergarten, we were driving down the town's main drag, having just left Books A Million with a copy of Go Away, Big Green Monster!, and my kidlet starts "reading" aloud in the backseat. She stopped and asked what a word meant. Suddenly, it had clicked. She was actually reading the book. I almost swerved off the road trying to comprehend the event. The next day, book in hand, she marched into Mrs. Hendren's kindergarten class and made her announcement, "I can read!" Mrs. Hendren looked at me with a sparkle in her eye and told me she had known Katie was on the brink of getting it. Katie was so happy, in class tradition, to be able to read her book to the class. And she never stopped reading, which brings us to Mrs. Wyland and her 4th grade Wizards.

What's not to adore? Mrs. Wyland was the quintessential elementary school teacher. She is the one you remember long after you have graduated from school and reflect back over your past educators and think, she is the one who turned on all the light bulbs. In fact, when Katie graduated from high school she and some friends, gathered as many of their 4th grade classmates that they could rustle up and went to thank her for being . . . well for being Mrs. Wyland. She was not at school. So like her, she had taken a few of her students to lunch. Cell phones in hand, they broke into groups and canvased the nearby restaurants until she was spotted at Panera's. En masse, they walked in greeting Mrs. Wyland with huge grins and hugs. She meant that much to that many kids. WOW!

But I digress. The reason I mention Mrs. Wyland has to do with the Accelerated Reading Program at the school. Books were read and tests taken to measure comprehension. The books were assessed points based on difficulty. The more books you read at a higher level, the higher your scores, the farther up on the chart your name went. My kidlet was bemoaning the fact that the top competitors were all boys, upon which Mrs. Wyland told her there was no reason a girls name couldn't be up there too. Wink, wink! That was all it took for my competitive child to launch double fold into books. While she never did catch Jamie Chapin, she reached number two and happily announced a girl could do whatever she put her mind to.

p.s. she is still reading. When she comes home from college, I find books laying all over the place. They clutter her room, roosting on window sills, table tops and floors. They also reside inside her iPod Touch. She is having a love affair with the written word and I couldn't be happier.