The Joy of Reading ‘Pinocchio’—On Paper

By SCOTT SIMON

We blundered into the bookstore between the pizza place and the gelato spot while vacationing in Santa Rosa, Calif., one last little exploration before we put our daughters (and ourselves) to bed after a busy day.

Our children, who are 8 and 4, have grown up seeing bookstores burst with games, toys, coffee frappes, cards, crayons, banana muffins and, incidentally, books.

I understand. If I ran a bookstore these days, I’d sell radial tires to stay in business.

But Treehorn Books in Santa Rosa has no diversions. Mounds of used books—musty, musky books, well-thumbed and worn, teetering and tottering Tower-of-Pisa style—are the sole enterprise.

My wife and I thought we might browse briefly before our daughters clamored for the gelato next door. But they opened books respectfully, as if popping the top of a secret, ran their fingers over old illustrations gently, and asked if we knew the stories.

Among the books we brought back to our room was “Pinocchio,” a 1978 Illustrated Junior Library edition of Carlo Collodi’s 1883 classic, with illustrations by Fritz Kredel. The book’s inside cover is signed (in cursive—already dating it), “Dorothy Santos.”

We opened Dorothy Santos’s old book that night. We have been stretching out and savoring it, chapter by chapter, every day since.

Pinocchio, of course, is a puppet that wants to be a boy, carved by a kindly, lonely man who craves the love of a child. Pinocchio, almost refreshingly, is the kind of boy who would be bad for any of the Disney Princesses. He wants to get rich quick through tricks instead of work. He rejects those who truly love him to dally with those who want only to use him.

Nowadays, the Blue Fairy might tell Pinocchio, “You are wood, and you are good! Get some self-esteem!” But the 1883 Pinocchio blames only himself for being a silly, churlish and disobedient “blockhead.” And yet, how can you not love the way a little boy’s spirit fights to get out of a piece of wood?

But all that has changed.  I have an infant in the house - now 20 months old (as of this writing) - and thus I happily, joyfully get to do it all over again - starting with those infamous board books and working our way quietly and patiently up to chapter books.

As I don’t have to tell you, it’s been delightful to introduce my son to books - to see what he responds to, becomes enthusiastic about, wants to hear again - and what words and phrases, images and scenes, he remembers, repeats, and learns.  To see him begin to respond emotionally to moments and characters - to identify with them, to laugh with them, to fear with them.  Who doesn’t know the joy of seeing your child light up at the zoo-keeper’s wife’s eyes on that otherwise all black page in Goodnight Gorilla?  My own son wants to skip the page when the scary bulldog with the big teeth chases the toy clown in Quentin Blake’s textless Clown.

Reading to an infant is all about noticing and proceeding through stages.  You never can tell how long a favorite book will last as a favorite (for us it was Caps for Sale and Go Dog Go and Green Eggs and Ham) to be replaced by the current obsession (baseball books, truck books) or how long the next stage will last.  But those stages also mark progress.  Can his attention span handle a book you can complete from beginning to end?  When can you add books with more text (or read the whole text)?  What kind of edgy material can he handle?  And best of all - what language acquisition to you see resulting from your reading?  Is that where he picks up colors?  How many obvious and eccentric nouns and objects does he acquire just from your books?

Recently, we’ve had one of those unexpected developments that I don’t remember from before - but now that I’m paying attention it’s clear as day.

One thing we know about reading to small children - they like to read their favorite books again and again.  Admittedly, this can be tiresome for their adult readers.  I have reflected on why they like this - and I think it is more than the mere truism that children like routine.  Yes, they like routine.  They also like novelty.  (Even when they don’t know it.)  But I think it’s something else, too.  Children are like little scientists who want to confirm their understanding of the world.  They want to check and make sure that what they “know” is still true.  They want to test and confirm the unconscious premises they are learning about their world - and make sure they are still true each day.  That is why they ask questions they already “know” the answers to.  And that, I think, is why they want to hear some stories again and again.  It makes them feel safe and sure - and confident - to be in command of a story - to know what’s going to happen and be right.  (Life, of course, isn’t like that - the cruel truth they will learn soon enough.)

Esphyr Slobodkina’s Caps for Sale was the first picture book I ever read to my new son.  We read it in the public library in Evanston, Illinois when he was 14 months old. I had to paraphrase the sentences and narrate the action - but he was taken (as I believe all children are) by the monkeys going “Tsk, tsk, tsk” to the peddler.  I don’t know how many times he’s read (listened to) Caps for Sale since then but I do know that it is still in the rotation.  8 months later, he still picks it out and asks for it.

But in a recent reading, I noticed that what he gets out of the book - what he follows and enjoys and anticipates - is different than before.  Like most kids, he gets the most fun out of the monkeys, imitating and repeating their finger and fist shaking and foot stomping.  But he likes to act out what the peddler is doing, too.  So when the peddler gets sleepy for his nap - my son anticipates it with a big yawn.  When the peddler wakes up - he likes to stretch with the peddler.  (Don’t all little kids relish that big stretch when they wake up?  Don’t all parents?)

This time through, he added something more.  The story is clearly familiar to him.  He knows how to anticipate what will happen next.  He knows when you come to the picture of the sun (”The peddler slept for a very long time”) on the next page the peddler will wake up and he will get to stretch.  But after learning about caps and trees - and monkeys - and about different colors (and aren’t those blue/green caps confusing - what do you call them??) - there is still more to be mined verbally from a simple picture book like Caps for Sale.

We can’t help but teach them and show them about the nouns and objects and characters and perhaps the feelings of characters in our picture books.  And they can’t help but learn them.  If we’re energetic and they are attentive - we use picture books to teach about descriptive things like colors.  It comes naturally.  You can’t help it.  But sometimes there’s even more.

As I sat reading this time, he focused on new words - new concepts! - in the story.  The peddler sought to keep his 17 caps straight on his head.  “Straight” my son repeated.  The peddler walked slowly to keep the caps balanced.  “Slowly” my son repeated.  The peddler sat down to nap by the tree - very carefully.  “Carefully” my son repeated.  Lo and behold - my son was picking up adverbs!

Did I have anything to do with it?  I don’t really think so.  Did I do anything to re-iterate or emphasize or clarify the concepts of straightness or slowliness or carefulness?  Definitely not.  It is a truism that young children’s minds are sponges - hungry and capable of absorbing new information - especially verbal information.  This is what reading aloud can do for them.  Their own hungry minds can reach out on their own and pick up all the elements of language they will need in school and life.  And we don’t have to do anything but pick good books, read with enthusiasm, and be patient when they want to confirm their hypotheses.

What I was witnessed was my son’s acquisition of adverbs - right in front of my nose - live in real time! Without explanation.  Without didactic instruction.  Merely from his (unconscious) extrapolation from context.  That is the power of reading aloud.  If we only stop to pay attention and enable its natural course.

My daughter had some early testing for high school so I was up before the rest of my family. I got a craving for pain au chocolat (a chocolate croissant) and decided to drop by a Panera Bread that recently opened up in a student neighborhood near my home. I got my pastry and a cup of coffee and sat down to read the paper before getting home to my family.

The Panera was not busy or crowded at 8 a.m on a Saturday morning. But I quickly noticed that several of the booths were peopled by pairs of young men reading the Bible together. They were all youngish - in their 20s. They all seemed a little scarred, marked. Not dirty, not threatening. Most were wearing varieties of baggy canvas jackets with capacious pockets. (I confess, at first blush, they looked like ex-cons.) But most significantly each booth - there were half a dozen - contained one man reading to another from a very small, portable, paperback Bible. They were each reading quietly and earnestly. And they were each being listened to intently.

As near as I could tell there was no group leader. They were not sitting in a group. They were distinctly in pairs. I supposed it could have been a small Bible study group. Perhaps it was a dozen men doing some prep work before an AA meeting. It most struck me as perhaps a meeting of parolees. I did not intrude on them to ask.

But the sight, the image, the very attentive dialogue I could see happening at each table - not dogmatic, not a harangue, not one-sided, not loud - has stayed with me. And sparked several thoughts.

It is true that once upon a time - for over 300 years - the Bible was the one thing shared by families as a source of common, shared reading, moral instruction, and discussion. The Bible was a source of common culture. I often make this observation in presenting to groups about reading aloud because families reading children novels aloud are merely an extension of that long lost tradition. Some families certainly still read Bible verses and stories together. But it is no longer a ubiquitous aspect of common culture.

And in truth the very notion of a common culture is waning. Today we are fragmented into our own generational, vocational, and extra-curricular niche interests. Common culture today can now be found in mass media events like the Super Bowl or American Idol or an occasional film like Avatar. Rarely any more is it a book. A series like Harry Potter - that somehow manages to reel in more than one generation- is the rare exception. But gang-buster best-sellers like Cold Mountain or the Da Vanci Code are no longer really sources of common culture - not like a film like the Godfather or a book like Erich Segal’s Love Story was in the 1970s.

The Bible is still surely a source of common culture - but it ain’t like it used to be. I am certain that if we did a Biblical reference identification test among our fellow Americans (or Canadians), we as a population would not do very well - much less well then if we had compared results from a century ago. I recall that when I wrote a screenplay about Pontius Pilate a decade ago, I polled friends and colleagues and acquaintances just to see who knew who Pontius Pilate was. Even among largely college educated adults the results were dispiriting. Harry Potter and the latest American Idol winner are sure to do better on such a test than Pontius Pilate or Cold Mountain.

But the men in the Panera Bread booths were engaging in an act of common culture. Individually (or in pairs) they were fervently consuming a shared text, and just as intently exploring and sharing it with their discussion and dialogue. It was a small example - or it seemed that way to me - of the value and power of a common text - and of sharing it by reading aloud. I doubt very much whether the men involved would have appreciated or mined their text as well had they not shared it that way. Had they not listened to another read it - and bounced their impressions off of each other. That, I am sure, is the power and value of reading aloud. Of creating and re-inforcing a shared artifact of common culture. We encourage families to do it. But anybody can. Married or courting couples can do it. Circles of friends can do it. Book clubs can do it. Teachers and classes can do it. And of course families can do it. In fact, as with the Bible, it starts with the family.

The day I was to speak happened to be the day before Halloween and the New York Times ran this editorial, by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket). I was faced w/ a dilemma. The editorial said something powerful and subtle that is one of the hardest things to explain to parents and teachers and principals. It said something that some people just get naturally - and others need to be convinced - and others can’t be convinced. He said that letting children encounter and experience “scary things” is not only OK, not only salutary, it’s even necessary. Not an easy thing to say - and he said it well.

I chose to read the entire editorial at the PTA meeting. That’s how valuable and important I found - and continue to find - the sensitive way he expressed this difficult concept.

There are lots of reasons to read at all, and lots of reasons to read aloud. And I needn’t explore the full catalogue here. What I want to offer here is a gloss on Handler’s insight - on why it’s not only OK, but salutary, even necessary to challenge our children when we read aloud to them.

Challenging doesn’t mean scaring them. And it doesn’t mean inundating them w/ information. It does mean offering them new worlds and new experiences, new authors and new styles. Many children want the old familiar at the dinner table and the old familiar when they pick up a book. It’s fine if they want to re-read safe, comfortable, familiar books. But when you read aloud together, that’s an opportunity for you and he/she to explore something new - something fresh - something daring.

[Not that you have to. I, too, love to re-read my favorite adult books - the topic of another essay, perhaps. And there is joy, too, in re-reading a favorite book w/ your children - from Little House on the Prairie to Lord of the Rings. That’s just not the element I want highlight here.]

I found another example of this phenomenon, also worth sharing, in A.O. Scott’s recent essay on children’s films, especially Where the Wild Things Are and Fantastic Mr. Fox (both, of course, based on children’s books). I haven’t seen either film yet - but his track record is strong enough (though sophisticated, Scott understands and appreciates children’s films) - that I am confident that even if I end up having misgivings about either film (possible) his insights are still valuable.

As Scott says, parents do worry about (and judge each other on) what films their children see. That’s the duty and responsibility of being parents. And as Scott also says, where there is happiness, there is also discomfort. That’s life. Scott asks if Fantastic Mr. Fox is too scary or confusing? I don’t actually know, but I do know these are the right questions to ask. And I believe that we shouldn’t be afraid to let our children sometimes help us answer them - we can do so by gauging their reaction to edgier films/books like these. But in order to do so, we have to be willing to push the envelope a little here and there. Sometimes a book or film works thru some strange alchemy we don’t understand. If we try to identify or delineate its constituent parts, it doesn’t add up. But it is the strength of the artist or creator to understand something we don’t. This is how art - and literature - work. We just have to be brave enough to let it.

Finally, David Brooks contributed a recent op/ed piece (also in the Times) that has a lot to say about the broad way we help educate ourselves - specifically the auxiliary education we create - that ends up being a secondary education for our children as well. I am sure each of us can think of other interests in our lives that seep into our children’s understanding of the world - interests similar to but other than Bruce Springsteen - interests that constitute the auxiliary education of which he speaks.

I remark on it here because reading aloud is one of those things we do to create that auxiliary education. It is the time spent sharing culture together - books, movies, music, but also shared activities like cooking or sports or hunting or craft-making - that inform that auxiliary education. It can be the way we talk about things in the books we read together. But even more it is the habit of doing so - the inconspicuous things that a child doesn’t notice but that take effort and patience and perseverance - like just making the time to read together - that are the heart of this process. In many ways it is the example we set - what children see us do and consume - that informs that education. (”My Dad listens to Bruce Springsteen. Or Johnny Cash. Or U2. Or Bob Dylan. My mother reads Oprah’s magazine, O - or Oprah’s book club selections - or never reads at all, except to me. My father likes to work in the basement. My mother is always cooking in a hurry.” Etc.)

These are the components of that auxiliary education. How valuable it is to recognize this and know that we have this time w/ them to inform it and bolster it and enrich it. We each provide the curriculum for that education, whether we’re trying to or not. Here’s to suggesting we each pay some conscious attention to what goes in - as we do when choosing or not choosing books and movies - and to remember that doing some things and sharing some things together should give us the strength to be brave and bold and daring and insure that that auxiliary education is as rich and stimulating and challenging as it can be. Do not shy from life. Doing so is not only salutary - but necessary.

[I am somewhat embarrassed that each of the pieces cited here are from the New York Times. I can’t really control that. You collect what you encounter, it percolates, and eventually adds up to a blog piece. In this case, these pieces coalesced for me. Pure coincidence that they all come from the Times.

Further, once I do get around to seeing Where the Wild Things Are and Fanastic Mr. Fox, if I have any adjustments to make, I’ll post them here.]

Sounds like social science boilerplate, doesn’t it?  What is resilience anyway?

But let’s take a step back from cynicism and think about what this sentence really means.  Because I believe “resilience” is at the heart of volunteer, non-profit altruism.  It’s at the heart, too, of what the scores of literacy programs are really after when they try to improve literacy in the home, especially among poor-income or at risk children, homes prone to social pathology.

Ask anyone connected with a literacy program and they will tell you anecdotes about kids who can’t read.  Kids who come to school unable to read - with handicaps and hurdles that make learning to read harder.  Parents unable to read.  Homes without books.

One of the problems with many well meaning and enthusiastic literacy programs is that they are very good at finding books and making them available.  The problem is that in many of these homes, they don’t know what to do with the books.  Books themselves are not hard to find.  Public libraries still function.  What’s missing in these homes is a culture of literacy, a culture of reading.  No books on the shelves means reading is not a normal activity or option.  Children in such homes do not see reading modeled as a leisure or entertainment activity.  It is just a school thing.  Alien.  Work.  Not fun.  Not family.

Literacy advocates know they face an uphill battle.  You can try to help a child to read at school.  You can expose him to a variety of books.  You can inundate her with encouragement and extra attention.  But when he goes home, the books he brings home are an isolated, private possession.  They are not something shared or respected or appreciated in the home at large.

For such children, learning to read is hard.  It is easy to give up.  And school is harder.  It is easy to give up there, too.  More importantly, the lesson of giving up is re-inforced.  This is where a social science buzzword like resilience crops up.  Resilience is the quality of being able to take a social or socioeconomic punch or challenge, and find a way to bounce back and seek a new solution.  The few children who do emerge from such environments have this magic quality.  Where do they find it?  Are they born with it?  Is it luck?

Maybe.  But the academicese above suggests that it’s more complicated than that.  Children learn qualities of perseverance and problem-solving when they have an environment that challenges and encourages and supports and rewards them.  That environment cannot just come from school.  Teachers and coaches can provide inspiration.  Some extraordinary teachers and coaches can prove uniquely influential.  But for the vast majority of resilient children, you need more.  You need standards and expectations.  You need support and encouragement and reward.  And the institution that provides that best is the family.

Illiterate families represent a generational chain of illiteracy.  How can you break that chain?

Believe it or not, there is a literacy program that actually trains the family.  That teaches a family how to be literate together.  That models high standards and expectations.  That discovers and teaches the joy and rewards and love of a good children’s novel - of stories and books and literacy.

A tall and grandiose claim, I am sure.  But proven and effective.  And beloved.

Such claims are clear and sought after far outside the realms of literacy programs.  Consider these examples:

The Wire

Many people consider HBO’s stark series, The Wire, to be one of the finest (if not the finest) dramas in television history.  It presents the worlds of urban Baltimore - the world of the drug-slingers and corner boys, and the alternate world of the municipal professionals - the police.  (Later seasons also present the worlds of the Baltimore stevedores, City Hall, the schools, and even The Baltimore Sun.)  The show’s strength is presenting three-dimensional characters on both sides of the line of legality.  Cops and detectives you both admire and revile - but with whom you can identify.  And - believe it or not - drug dealing youth with whom you can empathize - as some of them struggle to get out of “the game” (as they call it in the parlance of the street and the show).  This is particularly evident in Season 4, which takes as its centerpiece four 8th-grade boys, and follows their fortunes as they encounter the temptations and limitations and opportunities their neighborhood presents.  The boys are all different.  Three of them are raised by their mothers with no father present.  One has no parents at all - or no effective parents as they are drug addicts who actually steal anything he brings home!  This is a stark world.  And yet each of these personalities has strengths and personal qualities that suggest he might be able to weather this challenging environment.  At one point, the loneliest boy, Dukie (the one with the drug addict parents) is mentored by a compassionate teacher.  Later, Dukie tries to fit in at a local boxing parlor, started up by an ex-drug dealer trying to offer a clean way out for neighborhood youth.  Dukie is not much of a boxer, and he speaks with Cutty (the boxing proprietor) about it.  In one of the most poignant scenes in the show’s 70 odd episodes, Dukie looks out across the city and notes that escaping from the city - from the pathological temptations and restrictions of his environment - seems so hard and far away.  Dukie has never even left his neighborhood (West Baltimore) - let alone the city.  “The world is bigger than (West Baltimore),” advises Cutty.  But, “How do you get from here to the rest of the world?” asks Dukie.   And Cutty has no answers.

It is the easiest thing in the world for someone not from that environment to imagine that leaving that environment is easy.  There are so many opportunities - from school and jobs to college.  So many well meaning programs and helpmeets.  It is the strength of The Wire to present sympathetic characters who help you realize how hard it really is.  For Dukie, a smart, sensitive boy with loads of potential who has no business in “the game,” anything should be possible.  In reality, he can’t even imagine how to leave his neighborhood.  He is impoverished in so many ways, starting with poverty of the imagination.  He starts out with deficits (family deficits), he is blessed with two mentors, and yet his way out is anything but assured.  I won’t tell you what happens to Dukie, but I call attention to his plight - his eager, ignorant yearning and curiosity - to emphasize what he needs.  All the stuff in that social science sentence - standards, expectations, rewards - and most of all a consistent, nurturing environment to apply and nurture and husband those opportunities.  Neither of his mentors can supply that.  It is the stark truth of The Wire to show how us how severely the qualities of resilience are tested in West Baltimore.  And how important resilience is - if it can be nurtured.  If impoverished families can be taught how to nurture it.

Sugar

A recent film - a small independent film about baseball of all things - beautifully renders the simple importance of having a support network.  The film is called Sugar, and it presents a young Dominican baseball player (the film’s namesake) who hopes to make it to the major leagues.  When we first meet young Sugar, he is one of dozens of fellow young Dominicans, trying to be signed by a major league baseball team.  He is talented.  He is confident.  He has a loving family.  He gets his big break when is invited to a major league training camp.  Where reality sets in.  The first day, he discovers he is one of dozens of pitchers vying for a professional job.  Back home in the Dominican Republic, he was one of the best of a talented group of players.  Here in the States, he is one of 75 talented pitchers, vying for 50 professional spots on a major league team’s rosters.  As the MLB pitching coach says to them all, “Do the numbers.”  This is the point where anything can happen for young Sugar.  Maybe he’s the best of the lot and will rise to the top no matter what.  Maybe he’s just a run of the mill talent, like everyone else, and success or failure will depend on heart or will or even luck.  Or maybe he really is talented, but success depends on something more.  It is the strength of this film that it does not present a familiar or traditional story arc.  We don’t know whether Sugar will succeed or fail.  (And I’m not going to tell you whether he makes it.)  In a large sense, whether he makes it or not is not even the point of the film.  Rather, the film reminds us (or teaches us) that everyone is different, and that everyone will face a series of challenges or hurdles.  It is how we face those challenges and hurdles that defines us.  Sugar, really, is a film about resilience.

I will tell you that Sugar does get assigned to Class A ball in Iowa.  This is the low minor leagues, but it is a step on the ladder.  For a Dominican baseball player, with no English, to play in Middle America is to start out as a professional as an alien - virtually alone.  There are other young players, many of them Latin American, similarly lonely.  And Sugar even lives in the home of an American host family who regularly husband the careers of young players like Sugar.    I won’t say whether this devout Christian family make the difference for Sugar.  I will say that their presence reminds us that success or failure - or developing that crucial quality of resilience (as the social science mantra instructs us) - can often depend on having support networks - at home, and in alien territory.  Most personalities won’t manage the initial loss of confidence from seeing 75 similarly talented pitchers, or the injury to leg or arm, or the patient, trial-and-error challenge of learning a new pitch, few personalities can manage any of that - alone.  They need support networks to help them along.  Sugar has them.  But they don’t define success or failure either.  They merely enable it.

You might wonder if literature makes a difference for young Sugar.  (Imagine how many ballplayers from the Dominican bring books with them in their duffel bags.)  But I will tell you that a biography of the great Puerto Rican ballplayer, Roberto Clemente, does play a role in offering Sugar support, friendship, inspiration, and even enables him to find a kindred spirit.  But for now let’s acknowledge that a story ostensibly about baseball, while really a story about an alien immigrant succeeding or failing, is also a useful reminder of the environmental circumstances necessary to developing resilience.

Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor has recently been confirmed as the first Latino Supreme Court Justice in our nation’s history.  And during the weeks of the nomination and confirmation process, we as a nation got to meet Sonia Sotomayor and learn of her background.  How she grew up in a Bronx housing project.  And managed to emerge as a serious academic student, bent on achieving, and did in fact achieve.  Graduating not only from high school, but from Princeton and then Yale Law School.  She went on to become a U.S. District Court judge and now of course a Supreme Court Justice.  An American success story - an immigrant success story - if we’ve ever heard one.

Sonia Sotomayor had some advantages.  Her mother stressed learning and education.  She bought Sonia a copy of the Encyclopedia Brittanica when she was in grade school.  (Many homes in America’s disadvantaged communities contain no books.  Just getting books into the homes is a hurdle, but it is not the main hurdle.  Getting families to know what to do w/ the books is the most important hurdle.  Enabling them to use and capitalize on and exploit the books - to profit from them - that’s the main thing.)  But Sonia had many disadvantages, too.  Her father did not speak English when she was born.   She was diagnosed with diabetes when she was seven.  Her father died the next year.  She lived in three different Bronx housing projects growing up.  Her mother moved at least once to try to live somewhere safer.  Sonia grew up during the years of the crack epidemic when crime spiked in New York and the nation at large.

Sonia’s mother must have done plenty of things right.  Her brother, too, became a doctor and teaches at the college level.  But Sonia Sotomayor is a living, breathing, walking example of resilience.  Whatever advantage she gained from her mother’s guidance and encouragement and firmness, Sonia still had to weather the challenges of her environment, the emotional deficit in her family, and the daily, hourly distraction of managing her illness.  How easy might if have been for her to give up or give in?

Sonia Sotomayor is also a living, breathing, walking example of the power of literature to inspire, to provide models and goals, to instill and re-inforce worthy, constructive, resilient qualities.  She has explained how she was inspired in grade school by reading Nancy Drew novels.  You don’t find that kind of will and determination just from reading the Encylopedia Brittanica.

And pondering the notion of resilience for one more moment, just think - do you think it got any easier for Sonia Sotomayor when she was at Princeton, or Yale, or on the bench of the U.S. District Court?  She went to Princeton shortly after it went co-ed, when fewer than 20% of students were women.  How many of them do you think were Latino?  It takes reserves of internal strength, of fortitude and perseverance, of determination and, say it, resilience, to weather the challenges and hurdles of confidence and loneliness in an environment like that.  I am sure it was no different at Yale Law School, especially when affirmative action policies instantly attached a stigma to all minorities at institutions of higher learning.

Sonia Sotomayor has resilience in spades.  How did she get it?  Where does it come from?

I won’t over-sell the point by claiming it comes from books.  Surely it comes from the individual first.  But in most cases it must be nurtured, fostered, re-inforced.  And thus it comes from families.  But families only provide the environment of support.  Sonia Sotomayor had a mother who guided and inspired her with books, and I am sure she built up and amplified her reserves reading Nancy Drew - and the Encyclopedia Brittanica.  Developing resilience is a multi-stage phenomenon.

Now return for a moment to that academic paragraph at the top of this piece, the one about how to build resilience.  Developing emotional strength requires families.  Families are the lynchpin.  Many of us, reading about children, or literacy, or social problems quail when the solution becomes ‘families.’  Families are messy and complicated.  So much simpler if we can just focus on the children as individuals.  But that is not the way it works in reality.  Schools cannot do it alone.  Families are the organic solution.

Families build emotional strength in children by doing things together.  Leisure activities, like watching a movie - together.  Work activities, like doing the chores - together.  Play activities, like a game of touch football - together.  That’s right, families that work together, families that play together, those are the families that build qualities like resilience in their children.  And families that read together.

President Obama has repeatedly encouraged American families - especially families at risk - “to turn off the television, put away the video games, and read together.”  It is a noble and worthy goal.  It is a goal, if successful, that can surely foster and build reserves of resilience in some of those homes.  But it is a goal impossible for those families to achieve without know how, without experience, without a program.  No matter how well meaning, you can’t just throw books at these families and tell them to read.  Families, too, need support.

The One School, One Book program will enable these families to succeed by showing them how to read together, by instructing them how to read aloud, and by providing support and encouragement and motivation by reading together - as one community.  One School, One Book aims to show Dukie the other side of Baltimore - and the rest of the world.  It aims to let the Dominican immigrant be inspired by the life of the departed Roberto Clemente when he is all alone and in desperate need of resilience.  It aims to put modern day Nancy Drew exemplars in the hands of all of America’s elementary school youth so they, too, can curry the qualities that allowed Sonia Sotomayor to learn and achieve her way out of the Bronx housing projects all the way to the Supreme Court.

Reading together, as a family, as a school, as a community, can breed far more than literacy gains.  It is one way to breed that elusive quality - resilience.

(Find out more - find out how - at readtothem.org.)

So I’m reading the Iliad with my two oldest daughters - 7th and 9th graders.  (Real quickly, the 7th grader is reading it for extra credit in her Latin class; the 9th grader is piggybacking because she loves all things Greek; and I am along for the ride because it’s a moment I’ve imagined and dreamed of - but was never confident would actually happen - since I checked Star Wars, Episode IV off the list.)  In case you haven’t been there in a long time (or even never been), it’s a pretty bloody book.  Lots of fighting between Greeks and Trojans - that’s kind of the point - and lots of explicit gore.  I keep reminding my daughters - not that they need it - that in an age not only without television or computer or film but without printing, oral recitation of epic poetry needed to be detailed to fill in all the color and nuance of a scenario.  Those Greek greats weren’t poets for nothing.

So, lots of gory detail.  (Lots of beautiful detail from the natural world, too.)  When soldiers get killed it is very much like a modern action movie.  Homer tells you and shows you exactly where the spear went in and what happens to the body.  (Yes, my girls somehow love this.  Don’t ask.)

But the girls have also learned that the Greek warriors in the Iliad were not exactly gentleman with a fine sense of sportsmanship.  They did a great deal of gloating and challenging and chest beating.  Not unlike modern NFL players exulting and self-promoting over a fine defensive play.  (In fact, the girls agreed with me that when the gods exhort the Greek and Trojan chieftains, and those same chieftains then rally their troops and inspire them to fight harder and longer, it is not unlike a football coach going up and down the bench or sideline trying to motivate his players.  The stakes are different, but the challenge to honor and manhood - the techniques - are the same.)

One other little thing that caught their eye was the emphasis the Greek warriors place on their armor - and their opponents’ armor.  When you cut down an opponent in the Iliad, the thing to do is take their armor.  If you can.  It is a trophy that proves your worth and esteems your value back home.  But a man’s comrades will go to some lengths to prevent you from stripping a fallen comrade’s armor.  So there is a lot of effort - and language - expended on the issue.  (Those who know the Iliad will know that I am understating the case.  Fully three books of the Iliad are principally concerned with the fate of one man’s armor.)

Now I have a nine-year-old, too.  (Finally, I’m getting to the point of this little anecdote.)  And the Iliad is not for her, right?  Too gory, for one.  And the reading level must be beyond her.  Both are true, but don’t count your chickens.  My nine-year-old loves dogs.  And I did read her a chapter from the Odyssey, just to show her what we were up to and how it might interest her - someday - in ways she could not anticipate.  I read her the chapter in which Odysseus returns to Ithaca, and is concealing his identity while being escorted by a shepherd, and no one can recognize him.  And he comes upon his faithful dog, Argos, who has been waiting for his return (along with his wife and son and household) these twenty years.  Argos is the first to recognize him - he wags his tail to express his happiness.  Whereupon he curls up and dies.

It is a poignant and heartfelt (and famous) moment and my daughter will never forget it.  Is she ready for the Odyssey yet, all 24 books in its entirety?  No.  But the next time the subject comes up - to learn something more from that part of Greek history, or to read the Odyssey when it is time - will she approach it with fear and trepidation or with a sense of confidence and curiosity, knowing there are other delights and mysteries therein?  Well, that’s the plan anyway.

But the Iliad is still not for my nine-year-old.  Not yet.  Not for a few more years anyway.  But that didn’t stop her sisters.

Now my nine-year-old turned nine in December, before Christmas.  Like anyone’s child, there are times when she is precocious, nine going on fourteen.  And there are times when she is just a little girl, nine wanting to be six.  Or just being nine.  As parents, we enjoy both tendencies, but we cherish the latter because they are the fleeting ones.  Children only grow up.

Before her birthday, she surprised her parents by asking for a set of Playmobil knights, little two-inch plastic figurines, bedecked with armor and weapons, who would fight it out and ride horses amidst castles and things.  I knew she still liked - occasionally - to play with Legos and Star Wars figurines and even little plastic horses.  But I didn’t know this.  It was such an unexpected, and delightful, request that we said yes and found her a Playmobil castle with knights and all their regalia.

And she has happily set it up (with the help of her 7th grade sister, no less - twelve going on seven, for a fleeting moment) and played with it for a month.  Lots of knights mounting their horses and charging off.  Knights fighting on the ramparts.  (The castle even has some of the weaponry medieval soldiers used to ward off attackers.  Did I say nine-year-olds don’t like gore?)  And of course knights duking it out with their swords and shields and pikes.

And then one day, what do I find as I pass by the stricken battlefield?  My nine-year-old is helping/having a knight strip the armor off a vanquished foe!  She had been playacting a battle - same as any other I had thought - and then I hear her voicing, “Now, we must take the armor off the fallen knight.  Back! I say, Back!  No one dare touch the fallen knight.  We must have the armor for a trophy.”

Need I say more?  Her big sisters had kindly passed the information on from the Iliad and there it was in full relief on the battlefield/bedroom floor.  And I had nothing to do with it.  What more could you want?  Not everything about reading aloud - that is, sharing a story and its style and details and context - is about the reading.  Sometimes, it’s about some part of the experience that gets shared with others.  Sometimes it’s sentimental.  Sometimes its historical.  But either way, it makes my heart glow.

– LBCjr

1.13.2009

3 lessons from reading The Hobbit last night:

1) Take pleasure in the words.

2) The qualitative experience is more important than efficiency.

3) They appreciate things you don’t.

- Last night I’m reading The Hobbit to my daughters.  It’s not my favorite book.  It’s already past 8:30.  I’m just starting a new chapter.  Tolkein’s chapters are rarely fast.  There’s no way I’m going to be done by 9:00 p.m.  I roll my eyes and try to marshall my patience.  I have at least 4 things I want/need to do after the kids go to bed.  But right now I have to get through Tolkein’s prose.

- I start in hurried.  But I feel guilty quickly.  This is not why I’m reading.  And this is not why they’re listening.  This is certainly not why they picked this book.  I take a deep breath and remember my own advice: Take Pleasure in the Words.  I begin to seek out the colorful adjectives, the active verbs, the Middle-Earth pronouns, the dramatic or humourous juxtapositions that make the prose come alive.  I’m reading slower; I’m never gonna be done with the chapter by 9:00; but I can already see it in their faces.  This is why they’re listening.  They want to be turned on the by the juxtapositions, the hanging drama lurking in individual phrases and half sentences.

- I remember another lesson:  The quality of the experience is more important than it’s efficient execution.  There are lots of times when you feel like you need to rush to finish.  But this should not be one of them.  So what if we don’t finish the chapter?  Or so what if I have to read past 9:00?  One of ‘em has to give.  I want to enjoy the experience - my half hour with my kids.  Quiet, contemplative, stimulating, shared.  This is the way to do it.

- Still, the chapter is a slow one.  Gandalf is taking Bilbo and the dwarves to see some half-bear creature called Beorn.  He instructs them to come up to the cave two by two in 5-minute intervals.  Right away I can see that we’re in for a reprise of the first chapter - re-introducing the 12 dwarves - who I can’t keep straight anyway - let alone do all their voices.  I brace myself, and prepare to speed up.  But I can see also this is meant to be a humorous chapter.  The bear-guy feigns surprise every time two new dwarves show up.  It’s the same joke 6 times.  But I can see that while the joke is old to me it works and builds and is funnier each time for my children.  I need to do it justice, I need to sell Tolkein’s joke because it was meant for them.  And isn’t one of the things I’m after the vicarious experience of seeing ther joy, seeing them laugh, bringing them a stimulating experience???

- I slow down again, sell the chapter, and enjoy my half hour with them.  We didn’t finish the chapter.  But I was reminded of valuable lessons.  And they are all the more eager to finish the chapter tonight…

Some books don’t seem to lend themselves as well to being read aloud.  No matter how great they are, for whatever reason, they are harder to present orally.

One such book is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the touchstone of American fiction.  Central to the book is Huck’s voice.  The novel is presented in the first person and reading it you quickly inhabit Huck’s mind and world view.  Huck is both naive and street smart at the same time.  He is plucky and alert and still able to be duped or fooled.  The prewar Mississippi River is a very foreign place and Huck is our guide.  Much of it is familiar to him and it becomes familiar to us through his guidance.  Much of it is alien and foreign to him - dangerous even - and we feel that through his own discoveries.

Reading to oneself, it is easier to fall into Huck’s method of storytelling.  He disarms us with Twain’s notorious first sentences:  “You don’t know me without you have read a book by the name of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.  That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.”

Huck’s storytelling style is pell-mell - the events and sentences and twists and turns and occasional moralizing or interpreting come one after the other with little pause.  There is a cascading sense of curiosity and discovery as the anecdotes and stories and circumstances and characters who people the Mississippi follow one after another.  Huck’s occasional pauses to interpret or philosophize are welcome but usually brief.  Huck Finn is an unending ride - a tour of Americana.

And then there is Huck’s voice - a voice from 19th century America, Missouri to be precise.  A largely uneducated voice and hence full of slang.  And nonstandard English.  This is a celebrated part of the book - intended by Twain to be so - and one of the many sources of its influences.  But it presents certain challenges to an oral reading.

Daunting challenges  Huck’s voice is full of charm as you decipher his locutions.  But try to present his unfamiliar lingo and it becomes more difficult.  Adjusting to the pace of his stories can be even harder.  Good reading is usually stately and graceful, respecting and attending to punctuation, drawing out the language and whatever verbal riches lurk.  No one wants to read at a breakneck pace and yet many of Huck’s tales demand it.

But I may have found a solution.  One which applies to other works as well.  Let’s discuss the liberating power of the twang.

A year ago, I read my family Shiloh, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Newbery winning book about a boy and a dog in rural West Virginia.  The narrator, 11-year-old Marty Preston, doesn’t drop a lot of ‘-ing’s, but he does say ‘ain’t’ and uses ‘don’t’ for doesn’t and employs a handful of other verbal mannerisms we associate with a rural environment.  It was hard - impossible - for me not to read Marty without a bit of an accent.  Call it Southern, call it rural, call it Western - it doesn’t really matter - I am guessing you know what I mean.  Nearly everyone can do a ‘hick’ accent.  To some it comes naturally.  Others may need to borrow from a film or TV show.  (The world abounds with them.)  Understand - I mean no disrespect when I call it a ‘hick’ accent.  I use the term colloquially.  It’s just an accent that drawls and is not scrupulous about things like ‘ing’s.  When you fall under it’s sway, it becomes easier to say “ain’t” (if it normally is difficult).  And lots of other moments in a character’s speech become liberated.  Emphasis.  Enthusiasm.  You’re just generally looser when you start using it. You don’t need to become Gomer Pyle to give such a character his voice.

Marty Preston is a reflective little boy, so he doesn’t need to be oversold.  Indeed his reflections impart a quiet dignity.  (And how many taciturn cowboys haven’t presented dignity with their ‘hick’ accents.)  But I found that reading Shiloh that way opened up the book.  The accent gave Marty’s voice life.  It gave the book momentum.  It freed me and my listeners.  Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s prose is strong enough that dressing it up with Gomer Pyle is unnecessary.  But a little twang - what I would now like to call the liberating power of the twang - released Marty and Shiloh for me.  It allows you to read Shiloh with a kid’s enthusiasm, and as long as you don’t overdo it Marty can still present the quiet dignity he possesses.

I brought that Twang to Huck Finn.  Heck, it could have come from anywhere.  When you read The Indian and the Cupboard, you’ve got to do something to dress up the cowboy, Boone.  He is a tobacco-spitting Texan and outsize all the way, nearly stepping out of a tall tale.  It doesn’t really matter who you draw your twang from.  When I faced Huck Finn again the lilt and freedom of Marty Preston helped me out.  Huck is a hick, too.  He’s one we respect.  We know he will share himself and his conscience.  But he’s barefoot and dirty and can’t wait to get some peace and privacy to smoke his corncob pipe.  He needs some twang to tell his stories.  The first sentences tell you so.

How much twang is up to you.  But adding it frees up the prose of Huck Finn considerable.  It allows you to adopt a different persona, one perhaps looser and freer than your own. It is liberating. So run with it.  When Huck is telling a story, imagine him slapping his knee and sell it.  When Huck is talking with the Tom’s gang - or dealing with the raftsmen on the Mississippi River (e.g. the Child of Calamity - a true character from a tall tale) - bring in Boone and ham it up.  (Imagine him slapping his cowboy hat on his knee and stomping the floor with his boot.)  Be demonstrative.  Huck will seem dignified in comparison.

Adding the twang makes it easier to read faster - Huck’s pell-mell stories - without being embarrassed or self-conscious or losing your listener.  Instead it will bring your listener closer with anticipation.  It will suggest the trust that Twain’s prose and storytelling style demand and merit.

And it will really come in handy when you get to - and spend considerable time with - the Duke and the Dauphin.  Occasional readers tire of these characters - they are so over the top and so conspicuously transparent.  They don’t understand why Twain extends the joke so long.  (Twain has other fish to fry - things to reveal about identity and dissimilitude on the American frontier that we needn’t get into here.)  Twain intends more than short term jokes with the Duke and the Dauphin.  The story about the funeral (and potential inheritance) they stumble into has long-term play.  But adding the theatrical touch - Huck’s twang - makes it all a little easier to take a deep breath and dive into the silly antics of the Duke and the Dauphin and their mock aristocracy.

The twang can’t solve everything.  And it’s certainly not for everything.  And I am not suggesting here for a minute that one need become attentive to or expert in the variety of Western or Southern or rural or agricultural accents.  That is the province of the professional.  But I am suggesting that adding that twang, dropping those ‘ing’s, letting the drawl flow - that all of that will loosen you up and loosen up a book’s prose.  It’s like a shot of verbal whiskey, steeling you for the challenge and loosening your tongue.  Take a slug and let loose the liberating power of the twang!  Once you get off the Mississippi, a whole world of Americana awaits you.

– LBCjr

10.1.08

(My son) Kyle is a big Star Wars fan and recently got (for his birthday) the novelization of the recent animated Star Wars movie.   First off, the movie itself was beyond awful (of course, the kids enjoyed it, but it was truly terrible).  You can imagine what this implies for the quality of the book.  It’s a painful reading experience for me, but — under the premise that any reading interest of Kyle’s should be encouraged — I’ll grudgingly read the book with him in our pre-bedtime read aloud sessions.  I remember my Mom used to defend me from teachers who thought it was unproductive that my only reading interest in second grade were titles like “Great NFL quarterbacks” or “Great NFL Upsets.”  Still, it’s painful vocalizing the insipid dialogue.

I find the Star Wars (or Pokemon, another favorite of Kyle’s) type reading so painful that I’m constantly trying to steer him elsewhere.  I had picked up an abridged version of Treasure Island on a recent trip to Barnes and Noble.  I bribed Kyle into letting me read it to him by telling him I’d read two chapters of Star Wars for every one chapter of Treasure Island (if nothing else, the kid will learn the meaning of exchange rates).     After I finished 3 chapters, Kyle was begging me to keep reading and voluntarily gave up the exchange rate deal in order to get more Treasure Island.  It was great — he was physically curled up in a tense, expectant ball waiting to see whether the pirates would discover Jim and kill him like they had some others from among the “good guys.”  Lots of guns, blood, and other various encounters with dangerous pirates.  It’s a rewarding feeling to watch a child fall prey to the grip of a truly great story.

Interestingly, a determinant of Kyle’s interest in a book is whether or not it has illustrations.  The TI copy I purchased has a few, but not enough to catch Kyle’s eye.  I need to be mindful of this as I choose other “quality” books for him.  I don’t want to denigrate his own reading choices like Star Wars b/c I want to practice reading, regardless of the content.  Still, for read aloud time, it’s a heck of a lot more fun for me with a quality story in my hands.

My own daughters are getting older now. Entering high school. I can recall wistfully the moment not long ago when we realized we had purchased “the last picture book.” So sometimes my musings can tend toward the high minded, what to do with your older children, as in my recent Aim High column. But there is a flip side.

I am here now to remember the simple pleasures and joys of reading picture books out loud. To children of any age. Reading picture books to children who cannot yet read is the start and the heart of reading aloud. It is when children learn that books contain a world of vibrant mystery and imagination, continually new, continually stimulating. Each book different, each book offering a different pleasure or stimulus. It is when adults learn the techniques of gauging and adapting to their children’s attention spans and varying restlessness. It is also when adults learn the reading techniques that not only hold but increase their children’s interest level, making the experience so rewarding that the child will be the one clamoring for more.

Young children crave the familiar. They rarely tire of repetition. They want to hear and see the same books over and over again. Sometime even the same book over and over again. It’s a security thing. They constantly want reassurance that the world is the way they have come to understand and interpret it to be. Change is unsettling and so young children crave security.

I have even known graduating younger children to want to hear - or read themselves - the same chapter book over again. (Heck, maybe you have a favorite book you return to. I know I do. Even as we become adults and learn to manage change, it doesn’t mean we don’t want a little reassurance and security, too.)

But sometimes, that repetition and sameness can be wearing, trying, even boring. Reading Go, Dog. Go! for the umpteenth time, so that you practically have it memorized - “Go around again!” - that can become monotonous. The obvious solution is to keep things fresh by staying alert, making regular trips to the library or bookstore. Sometimes children will resist this, but not often. Each book is a brand new world, each page might yield a new surprise or picture, each story may have a new magic moment. Children learn this as you have learned it. That is what coming to appreciate books is all about.

There are some things you do to make reading picture books more interesting, more stimulating - just in case it threatens to get old. Happily, these are things I recommend doing anyway as they are techniques that maximize the experience of ‘listening to’ picture books, too.

The biggest key - other than the obvious one of adapting to your child’s interests - is to make reading picture books interactive. I am not saying this is something you “have” to do, and certainly not something you need to do every time. (Sometimes children just want to be safe and quiet and cuddly. What can be nicer for a parent - knowing how fleeting that time in their life is?) But it is something very much worth doing. It maximizes the interest children can find and make in picture books. It teaches them how to find points of interest in future books - on their own. It acculturates them to be alert and observant and thorough. And it keeps them on their toes. It makes reading more than passive. It makes it stimulating.

Tip #1 is to ask your children to find things in the pictures. Sometimes this can interrupt the narrative or flow or momentum of a story, so it may not be ideal the first time through a story. (Unless you judiciously keep it to a handful of items.) But especially when you’re plowing through familiar fare, start pointing. Ask questions. Get your child to guide you through the text.

“Can you find the monkey?” “What color is the balloon?” “How many ducklings are there?” (“Five? Are you sure? I think I can find seven…”) “I see four different kinds of cars in the city. Can you find all four?”

These kinds of questions bring the entire world of a story’s illustrations into play. Your child may already appreciate the details of a story’s world. Asking questions lets them take control, become the guide, and become proud of mastering its knowledge. It teaches them to be both observant and thorough. Along the way, depending on their age, it’s a fine way to rehearse childhood knowledge, from colors and counting, to specialist info like the difference between taxis and dump trucks, or hippos and rhinos. Children are hungry for knowledge and even the simplest books are an endless source.

Asking questions will also make the act of reading more stimulating for you, too. It may require a tad more energy. But it provides you a new way to bond and paves the way for interrogative interactions. It also shows your child you care about both the book and the experience. (Just in case your sighs and monotone might have crept in after the fifteenth reading.)

Tip #2 is to sell the prose. This is easier when the prose is better, but important nonetheless. It is probably more important when reading chapter books. (Finding vocabulary and phrases worth selling, subtly or emphatically.) But it is can be easier when reading picture books. Some picture books have so little prose, you can treat each sentence like some special haiku, even if - or especially if - it’s merely there to introduce the next illustration. Some books are more plot driven and when this is so, it’s hard not to read in a pell-mell style, overwhelmed by the need to find out what happens next. But I think it’s worth finding ways - or moments - to be patient. Not to frustrate your child. But to teach them the pleasure of anticipation. (After all, the story will be over much too soon, anyway.)

Involving your child in the prose is easier when reading Dr. Seuss (or any other book that rhymes easily, well, and somewhat predictably.) Dr. Seuss writes in verse, but it is verse with an easy, loping rhythm. When I begin to recognize the rhyme scheme, I will often stop just before the phrase which completes a couplet or rhyme - and let my child finish the line. This is easiest when they already know they story, but it is still plenty easy - and worthwhile - when they don’t. (You can start with just expecting the last word of a rhyme, but it won’t be long until your child can deliver a phrase entire, and even the whole line.) It’s a minor way of asking, ‘What happens next?,’ except that it requires their brains to interact with the language, to sense how the parts fit together. There is nothing better for a child’s brain when listening to text, even if it’s only Dr. Seuss. Making this kind of observation and anticipation second nature is what will enable your child to unconsciously attend to the components of a grammatically correct sentence when they get to school. It is truly the best way to prepare for the SATs. Not that you’re worrying about that when your child is four. But it’s the most helpful thing you can do.