My nephew and his bride had a son and in August of this year, I sent my “nephewlet” a book. I wrote a note to him, though he is only six months old, and told him that the pictures of him posted on a social networking site by his parents reminded me of the character in the book. My niece, a fourth-grade teacher in Maryland, gave me the thumbs-up. She said that her brother’s son was “going to love reading thanks to his family.” (I edited out the two “bangs” — exclamation points — that she added.)
In St. Louis, I learned that my two friends were having a baby and I sent that unborn child a book. I got a note from the child’s mother: “Thank you so much for helping our little reader get his/her (they claimed not to know the gender) book collection started!” The book was “Happy Winter” by Karen Gundersheimer. I know every line in that book because my two youngest children requested it each and every time they were given a choice. As with my nephewlet, I wrote a note to my friends’ zygote, saying that I chose the book because it was in the “happy winter” that I learned of the mother’s pregnancy.
I am an unabashed “book pusher.” I want all of the children of the world to have books, but I recognize the daunting logistics of that desire, so I concentrate on friends and family. When I lived in St. Louis, however, I shopped at an independent bookstore that had a program whereby one could donate books to local schoolchildren. I was a regular contributor.
My son once told me that he could remember the moment when letters became recognizable as words to him. “That was the most amazing thing,” he said. What was unsaid — but understood by me — was the testament to his mother’s dogged insistence on reading to him (especially “Happy Winter”). My oldest daughter has become a “book hoarder,” a condition she claims I imposed on her. I recently bought her sister a book and she astonished me by saying that the gift brought to two, the number of books she owns. I plan to change that.
I wrote a note to my niece in Southern Indiana, where she was recovering from her broken neck adventure, and told her that I loved that she had a copy of Charles Frazier’s “Cold Mountain” in the bookcase in her room. (I sleep in her room sometimes when visiting her mother.) She tried to gift me with the book, but I declined; I have a paperback copy of it (my hardback disappeared) and I want her library to continue to grow. I also have 41 books that I received from her mother after the death of her father.
I have written before of my love of books, and the words they contain. I recently found a book by Robert MacNeill, of PBS’ MacNeill/Lehrer NewsHour. “Wordstruck” is both a memoir and a description of a condition I share with him. I want to re-read all the books he mentions and revisit all of the poems. To date this year, I have read 26 books, which is an average of 3.25 books per month. This may be slow for some people, but in the manner that John Steinbeck wrote of one of the characters in “East of Eden,” I like to immerse myself in books, to swim in them. I fill in the spaces with daily and weekly newspapers and the odd magazine, bus wraps, menus and building graffiti.
These are all the things that contribute to my gifts to children, the words from Woods.