I really didn't learn to read until I started high school. That's quite a statement to make for a career librarian. In my first year of grade nine at Etobicoke High School, the guidance councillor, during a very brief interview asked me if my interests were more along the lines of manual labour, specifically working with shovels.
All my problems with early education stem from a belief that as long as I was present, silent, sat still, didn't distract others, and didn't raise my hand, I could slip through the grades unnoticed...no problem. This practice worked well until Grade 9 where it was expected (unbeknownst to me) that it was actually necessary to read. I didn't know how. My experience with books was limited to listening to Hardy Boys stories read to me by my cousins during summer holidays in Muskoka. I have no memories of being read to at younger stages in my life. I don't recall any childhood books beyond one that my mother read to me; The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr Suess. In all likelihood the story wasn't read very often since it was necessary to check Wikipedia to recall the plot.
It was in my second year of grade nine that books began to slowly enter my consciousness. I began to understand not only, that to succeed in school required reading, but also, that books held answers to burning teenage questions like, what are girls, and how do I fix my motorcycle. For some unknown reason the school Librarian took me under her wing and offered me a quiet back room reading space that I could use at any time during the day. The status of having a special room, and the solitude it offered, contributed greatly to my developing reading skills, life-long love of books, and the futuristic career choice.
There is nothing that you cannot learn from a book and there is not a book from which you cannot gain something. The vast compendium of fact, meditations, commentaries, opinions, and fantastical re-imaginings, created in books, have nourished the roots of civilisation and human achievement for some four thousand years. Early manuscripts collected in Summer Mesopotamia became scrolls in Alexandria; and Constantinople in the 5th century, had 120,000 volumes. Today the Library Of Congress is the worlds largest library with an unbelievable 145 million items on 745 miles of shelves. The totality of the human experience is well recorded.
Most people learn about life by experiences in the real world of
love, death, friends. Others, first experience the same lessons in
books. To learn about life we cannot rely solely on experiences. I ask. What firsts do you experience in books rather than life? The answer can be as varied as your library. Words can make experiences real because imagination and experience are grounded in language. You remember experiences in words and you can imagine new experiences with words.
For me, books bridge the gap between what I see about life, to how I understand those perceptions. Children grow up asking the question why. The stories they read give a shape to these questions and their answers are a language for that experience. We read stories to understand what we want to know. Life becomes all about the questions. Words in context, allow us to understand experiences, while many life experiences often remain confusing in their interpretation. I can easily follow an author's reasoning for how a protagonist reacts to situations in a plot but often I have a devil of a time analysing the reactions of loved ones.
I pondered these thoughts as the picture above arrived in my emails. My daughter (a teacher herself) captured this vital experience she arranged for her children. It may be that the book is upside down, and it may be that a 3 month old finds some confusion in printed words, but attitudes are shaped by even the most misunderstood experiences and I wish for them a world full of books.
