About ten days ago, I attended a Calgary Reads fundraiser The Big Book Club at Hotel Arts. It was
a great evening spending time with booklovers and hearing Will Schwalbe talk
about the writing of his book “The End of Your Life Book Club”. He wrote the
memoir as a result of spending time sharing books and conversation , in the
last two years of his dying mother’s life. The book is both joyful and sad, as
is most of the really meaningful stuff of life. The books they shared inspired,
provoked and challenged them and it brought them together in conversation,
ostensibly about the books but in reality about them. The letters on the page
blended into words that morphed into ideas and synthesized into imagination and
memories. They were richer for sharing the books and the conversation. I think
we all are richer when the chain from letters to imagination occurs.
I am a reader. Fifty books last year and twenty-three
already this year. Books have inspired, provoked and challenged me since the
magic key unlocked the reading chain. I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t
read, didn’t read. My kids and grandkids are mostly readers and I don’t
remember them ‘learning’ to read. I suspect that there was someone in my life
and theirs that opened the first spine and began gradually, gradually, and
suddenly opening the door to Tome Sawyer, Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, menus,
instructions, schoolwork but I can’t draw it from a time before reading.
Steacy Collyer, the ED of Calgary Reads, spoke at The Big Book Club about the number of
children who arrive at school willing but unready to learn to read. In Canada
28% of kids are in that category. Without some intervention and inspiration I
wonder if a passage from one of my favorite books might have looked like this.
“Would you tell me,
please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a
good deal on where you want to get to."
"I don't much care
where –"
"Then it doesn't
matter which way you go.”
¯ Lewis Carroll, Alice
in Wonderland
Would this have been like not receiving the key to unlock
the reading chain? As I stare at these squiggles (a legitimate Microsoft font)
I am baffled and overwhelmed as to where I begin. I can feel ‘give up’ creeping
in. “It’s too hard” sneaking up. “ Maybe I can just fake it” being offered. My confidence is eroded just imagining this
predicament and the idea that reading could be joyful doesn’t seem possible.
I am not and educator or a tutor. I am not a specialist in
brain development or curriculum. I only know the importance reading has played
in my life and how it has shaped me. I beam when I hear my grandkids discussing
with each other the stories they are reading and the tales they are creating.
Even though I don’t remember the person who gave me and them the gift, I
understand that there must have been someone. Along with the 18 engagement
initiatives that Calgary Reads provides they also recruit, train and deploy
someone into the lives of hundreds of kids every year. While this doesn’t solve
everything, it can be that simple for many kids. It can be the experience that
changes the passage above into the one below.
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from
here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get
to."
"I don't much care where –"
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Calgary Reads brings together
people, schools, community partners and business to make reading a priority.
There are many ways that you can be involved including sharing your time,
talents and treasure.
