BORN TO WRITE

Edith here!

I wanted to be a naturalist when I was five. I loved animals. But I never could find specifics on the career. Then I decided to be a veteranarian - until my cat fell out of a sixth floor window. I knew I could never deal with that again.

Thing is, that I wrote through all of that. I began to write stories when I was ten.

Then I decided to be a poet. Or rather, a poet decided to be me, because I don't consciously remember making the decision. So I wrote poetry.
Until, when I was fifteen, my brother decided that the poem I was so
proud of was too good.  He said I must have "subconsciously copied a
poem I read somewhere."  (That was the great Era of Freud.)

Then I wanted to be a comedy writer because my new brother- in- law was
one, and it seemed a terrific thing to do.
When I graduated from college, I discovered there were only three viable female comedy writers in the Biz.  It was a boy's club.

Then I wanted to be a playwright.
Oh ho ho.
Fine in college. But outside in the real world?
Wrong gender again.

Then I decided to write publicity and PR, and I did.

Then I wrote for newspapers and was pubbed.
I wrote editorial type pieces that appeared in newspapers.
Magazine articles that appeared in magazines.
Then Romance novels -  you know the rest.

The point is -  I always wanted to write.
Because I always read.
And so did my mother, father, sister and brother.

We become what we admire.  We try to emulate what we see.
My mother read agony soap opera kind of stories. My father loved mysteries.
My sister read me "Alice in Wonderland" and all sorts of wonderful stories before I went to sleep.
She married a man who wrote for all the big time comedians.
And my brother read and wrote, and became an international newspaper man.

We become what we see what we can be.
I have two children who are writers.
My year old grandson has a mother and a father who are both writers.
Needless to say, his favorite toys are books: in the crib, in the
playpen, in the bath!  He teethes on books, and dogs.  (Well, we do
have other passions in this family.)
I always wonder if children who never see books in their homes can
ever become writers.
There's a magnet on my fridge that reads "A house without books is
like a body without a soul."
But I see plenty of houses without books.  (check your latest NY Times
Home Decorating issue.  Nary a tome.  Fah!)

Will today's kids see their parents and sibs reading books?
That's where the future of literature resides.

HOORAH for J.K.Rowling, whatever Dumbledore is or was!

Hoorah for parents who read.
Hoorah for books in the house.
A house is NOT furnished if there aren't any books.

Interactive Video games are great.  They are not literate.
Animals are said to think in images.
Humans are the only ones who can think in language, they claim.
(Though I think some of my Daisy's bad dreams, when she twitches and
moans, are her hearing: "Bad dog!" -   "No! No!"  or -  "Ooooh, what
did you do?")

If our children watch TV and movies and play video games all day, will they lose the ability to think in words?

That's the worst thing I can think of.

What about  you?   Did you have books in your home?  Do your kids, or
your sib's kids, or your friend's kids, have books in their homes?
Let's get them books out there!!!!

How can we do that?

Comments

[Eleanor]

Yes!! Great post Edith! I totally agree with you. Reading and using our imaginations to construct a picture of the world inside is so important. My parents were both English teachers, then my father became a college librarian. I grew up surrounded by books and now we have so many books that we can't remember all of them and sometimes come home with duplicates. A friend moved away and complained that we had more books in our house than her local branch library! I believe that a person who reads regularly is better able to keep boredom at bay than someone who depends on TV or games. Unfortunately, it also has a downside -- I tell people I have an addiction and need a 12-step program because my yard is a mess and June Clever would faint at the condition of my house. But I can entertain myself for hours at a time and so can my teenage son whose milestone "read by myself book" was Harry Potter 1 which he read in a weekend at the age of 8 and by the 8th grade knew enough about language to score a perfect 800 on the verbal SAT's. Here's to the reading addicted!

[liz]

Well, obviously we've got books. Library books, book sale books, trips to the bookstore books. And I'm a huge believer in comics as gateway drugs for reluctant readers - but how did we turn my oldest reluctant reader into a book worm?

Video games.

No, really. We started with Animal Crossing, which requires them to write letters and maintain good social relationships with the other characters. If the letters aren't carefully crafted they shun you and you get no treats. Then we moved into things like Zelda, just slightly above her ability level which took us to Strategy Guides.

Anything can be used as a reading motivator. From Nancy Drew manga to actual Nancy Drew, from video games to actual books. She's reading Island of the Blue Dolphins & Rats of Nihm for this trimester of 2nd grade. And playing a lot of Zelda.

[Kalen Hughes]

***There's a magnet on my fridge that reads "A house without books is like a body without a soul." But I see plenty of houses without books. (check your latest NY Times Home Decorating issue. Nary a tome. Fah!)***

My mother comments on this all the time. We'll be watching one of those Home Dec shows and she'll roll her eyes, or make a snide remark about pitying the poor people who got one of our homes to deal with (books, books, and more HEAVY books, LOL!). I think the show that nearly killed her was one that featured a house with books, and the decorator stripped off all the dust covers and arranged the books by colour. Mom still rages about that one (and every once in awhile her rage is renewed by Martha Stewart, who seems to be fond of this technique as well; it was featured in her 20-something’s mag Blueprint a few months back).

[Kalen Hughes]

Liz, that's so smart of you! My little brother was a reluctant reader (extremely dyslexic). He got turned on to books in junior high when he’d gotten to the point where he could pretty much beat any video game in a few hours and wanted something more interesting to do . . . I stuck a Michael Morcock book in his hands and he was off to the races (so to speak).

[NinaP]

Great post, Edith! You really got me thinking about the way I was raised vs. how I am raising my daughter.

My parents were not well educated and I can’t ever remember seeing them read. But they saw in me a love for books and encouraged it. What drove me to books, I think, was escapism. Being the first of nine will do that do ya.

I was never able to finish college, but when my daughter, Anna, came along, I put a book in her hands as soon as she could grasp it. At two, she picked up a pen and began scribbling little wavy lines. When I asked her what she was doing, she told she was writing. She hasn’t stopped since.

Her favorite pastime in elementary school was our family weekend trip to Borders. I’ve spent a lot of money at Borders.

Now, at twelve, her idea of a good time is volunteering at our local Library where she works at the circulation desk and aids with the children's programs. All last weekend she was there setting up for then assisting with a massive book sale.

Yesterday was her birthday. The girl received three journals and two packs of colored pens. Never was she happier.

At the moment, she’s reading an anthology on the literature of England. A two-inch thick tome she bought that the book sale for $1.

[Susan Wilbanks]

Our 3-year-old is growing up surrounded by books. I wouldn't have it any other way! We read to her every night, and I've started taking her along on my weekly library runs. She's not reading yet, but she recognizes a few words and most of her letters, and she loves stories. Lately she's taken to drawing favorite stories on her etch-a-sketch and telling them to me, complete with dramatic sound effects.

She watches TV and plays with the computer (under close supervision) too, and she loves it when she can connect a story across media. So she loves books that tie in to her favorite shows. I endure the Dora and Backyardigans tie-in books, which are usually dreadfully written, because I'm not about to discourage interest in ANY books. But I also made sure to introduce her to Between the Lions on PBS, since it's set in a library and features good children's books. She now asks me to get books she sees featured on the show from *our* library. The only problem is I'm not sure she's grasped yet the Cliff Hanger and Chicken Jane recurring features aren't real books!

I can hardly wait till she's old enough to follow chapter books so I can introduce her to Narnia, Little House, Charlotte's Web, and the like. I'm thinking of getting some of the simpler ones, like Little House in the Big Woods or the first All-of-a-Kind Family book, for Christmas, just to see if she's able to follow a longer story with relatively few pictures yet...

[Sherrie Holmes]

Like Nina, my parents were not educated folks, but Mom was a reader of sorts--no novels, but magazines. Nevertheless, she encouraged us kids to read.

We devoured novels, nonfiction books, magazines, newspapers, comics, and cereal boxes. The highlight for us during the summer was when the bookmobile came around. My brother and sister and I bustled outside the minute the bookmobile appeared. While the other neighborhood kids checked out one or two books, we carried ours out in sacks.

When I was in second grade, I got placed in the advanced readers' group. Reading continued to improve my vocabulary, and I aced all my English spelling classes.

Now, I have less time to read, so I don't read the enormous number of books I used to. However, I listen to unabridged audiobooks all the time, which is almost as good. And audiobooks are really a godsend for older people I know with eye problems who cannot read very well.

[Susan/DC]

I grew up in a house with bookcases in every room, and my house has lots of bookcases with shelves filed two deep. In keeping with the family tradition, two of my sons are voracious readers. The youngest, however, is clearly a changeling left by the pixies. One holiday I gave him a book by Sherman Alexie, who had entranced Michael when he gave a wonderful lecture at Michael's school. As much as he loved Alexie in person, he opened the gift and looked at me as if I couldn't be his Real Mother, because his Real Mother would know him better than to think he's want a book as a present. A week later my middle son bought a biography of Adlai Stevenson, a collection of S.J. Perelman's short pieces, and Richard Russo's "Empire Falls" at the library's used book sale. Apart from my wonder that a 20 y.o. even knew who Adlai Stevenson was (much less cared enough to read a bio of him), I was struck by how the same gene pool can create such different human beings.

[liz]

Kalen - I sympathize with your brother - I have Dyscalculia. I was misdiagnosed as Dyslexic for a period of time but my reading levels were so high everyone knew that was wrong.

Edith - I just realized my reluctant readers very first book came from you. Her sister has it now. So gifting books is an excellent way to encourage people.

Thought I forgot earlier - another thing I've done with the kids is bed time story - when I have time I don't read them one of their books, I read a chapter out of a book way over their head - a text on dinos, an oz book - whatever might interest them.

[Bonnie]

Edith,
A great post. My home resembles a library with books everywhere. I never have enough bookshelves.

My three kids are all readers. They each married non-readers who had difficulty adjusting to the fact that they would have books and nose-in-book spouses to contend with.

I am pleased to say that my one grandchild is picking up the reading habit early. Her father has read to her since she was born.

I am a former teacher and I always found that the children whose parents were not readers struggled more with learning to read.

Again, a great post.

[Maya]

methinks i now know why edith leapt on the 'when did pets become pets?' blog topic! (i've always wanted to use 'methinks' but i write contemporary)

ref: being an example - several of my husband's patients are teachers and queried him about reading with our sons. when he said that i did so regularly, they said something like 'yes yes, every kid knows their mother reads - you need to show them dads do too.' he took it to heart and has been the one responsible for bedtime stories ever since.

[Edith]

Liz - Great news about babies reading!

>> I just realized my reluctant readers very first book came from you. Her sister has it now. >>>>

But.....Uhm, kindly to refresh a memory - but which book was that?

And Maya!
>>methinks i now know why edith leapt on the 'when did pets become pets?>>

Of course I leapt on the "when did pets become pests" topic!

[Edith]

Oh.

"When did pets become pets?"

Not pests.

nevermind.

[RevMelinda]

Hi Edith,

As a toddler I used to sleep in my crib with books piled up all around me. It's still kind of the same all these years later, with the TBR pile next to the bed, three books-I'm-currently-reading (at the same time, so Gemini) on the floor next to the bed, and another one clutched in my hand as I drift off to sleep. . .

I also want to tell you that I found a copy of The Wedding and I LOVED it. Having read that one and Bride Enchanted pretty close together, I would say that you are still and always a poet, Edith!

Melinda

[Gillian]

This was a good post to read this morning. . .as I trip over books in every bedroom, and the kitchen, and the couch, and of course in every bathroom (uninterrupted reading!).

Our books never stay on the shelves for very long :)

[Edith]

I oftimes say ( I know what you mean about words you love to say, Maya. 'Oftimes' is one of mine.) .. as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, I oftimes say that I have books the way other people have mice.

And Melinda, the poet in me thanks you
and so does the writer
Your lovely compliment
made me feel brighter.
(You see why I gave up poetry?)

[Gretchen F]

Wierd fact: At the height of the cold war in the late fifties, a government pamphlet on protecting yourself from nuclear fallout recommended lining the walls of your fallout shelter with books,since the thickness and density would help keep radiation from reaching the occupants. As a child, I took comfort from the thought that my family would be well protected.!! Modern families would not derive the same benfit from video games or DVD's, however.... Even though the Evil Russian Empire is no more, I am proud to say that I am safely surrounded to this day, but I am now defended against boredom..LOL! Gretchen, who knows that all the wenches are equally safe....

[liz]

Gretchen - I love reading old fallout advice. Reminds me to verify before trusting.

Edith - Richard Scarry's Biggest & Best Storybook Ever. (Surprised me. I love Lowly Worm.)

[Patricia Rice]

My parents were poor and didn't have bookshelves of books, but my mother managed to get us to the library even though she didn't have a car. And every Christmas we each received a book on Christmas Eve to give us something to do besides wiggle in anticipation. I passed on the tradition to our kids, and it's now being passed on to our granddaughter.

[Konstantyna]

Wanna tell you I love your way every day... and Wery well!
Shadows grow so long before my eyes And they're moving across the page ...

[Blaise]

Very interesting website. Keep up the outstanding work and thank you...

[Hedwig]

Space Exploration Benefits Our World, costs too much

[Wladyslaw]

Take care of it and keep it on the road!