View Story | 178 comments
Comments: Expand Shrink Hide (Always) | Indented Flat (Always)
I love that. The best books take me to another place and time, and make me think about a host of things I don't usually focus on.
When I was 4 years old I made my father teach me to read. My parents both read, as did my older sister. I knew that there were stories in those books they read, and it killed me that I didn't have access to those stories. I understood the "doors to the world" concept then, if only in a limited, 4-year-old's way.
Let's build an Obamajority!
by casperr on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 05:05:56 PM PDT
My mum did the same for me, and insisted that I read. Kipling was very early, and still colours the way I spell. Good for you and your folks! Please tell them that a madman congratulates them for a job well done, even with your prodding. Warmest regards, Doc.
Sometimes I feel like Robert Louis Stevenson created me. -6.25, -6.05
by Translator on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 05:10:17 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
I would wish that for every child. :) Thanks for sharing.
Join us at Bookflurries: Bookchat on Wednesday nights 8:00 PM EST
by cfk on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 05:10:36 PM PDT
and I read to all three boys as they developed from infants to, what are now, adults. And each of them is an intelligent, bright, witty, and wonderful person. I do not remember any of them saying "ai'nt", except for effect, ever. We are from Arkansas, and each of them conjugate their verbs properly. Literacy is a good thing. Warmest regards, Doc.
by Translator on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 05:16:26 PM PDT
I love it!!!
by cfk on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 05:18:40 PM PDT
for untreated bipolar folks. Warmest regards, Doc.
by Translator on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 05:22:27 PM PDT
ones. You are very kind, and I appreciate you and your fellows lowering themselves to communicate with me. Warmest regards, Doc.
by Translator on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 06:06:14 PM PDT
to our discussion, tonight...bless you. I hope you will come by often.
by cfk on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 06:29:34 PM PDT
to my children when they were learning.. "It is a door to another world..."
My mother read to me, and I read to them...and they are passionate readers. Thank god.
And thanks...for the quote from Passenger to Teheran. I had read about it in Virginia Woolf's letters, ( and I read S.W'sThe Edwardians), but had forgotten that I wanted to read it...it sounds lovely!
She was a very interesting woman, and someone in your diaries suggested that the letters of her husband, Harold Nicholson, were also very good...so that's on the list, too.
Thanks...as always. I love to visit your diaries. So much richness here.
by la urracca on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 05:23:40 PM PDT
I can imagine Harold's letter are good, too..thanks for mentioning them...I will put them on my list.
I am glad to see you, tonight! How is it going?
by cfk on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 05:27:10 PM PDT
Heartily recommend them, especially when he starts talking about his role during the Treaty of Versailles negotiations the and his godfathering the League of Nations.
Reading them is like sitting in his lounge, in a comfortable leather wing chair, neither too close nor too far from the warming fire, a glass of good bourbon or scotch in one's hand, and a long evening ahead on oneself with nothing to do but listen to him "talk."
Excerpt here.
They burn our children in their wars and grow rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
by Limelite on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 06:09:52 PM PDT
Glad I read that before I went off to bed..
Perhaps it was you that wrote about his writing here, before..
I have now read so much about this period in England ( late-breaking Bloomsbury passion), that now everything I read additionally is incredibly amplified. I feel as though I could step right into that world.
Thanks for the excerpt!
by la urracca on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 06:16:15 PM PDT
J'admets.
by Limelite on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 06:33:24 PM PDT
recovering from a wicked virus...
I always love to hear about your lovely family, but I hate to ask, knowing that I won't respond tonight... going to bed...
by la urracca on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 06:11:34 PM PDT
maybe you can come by next week...resting is good!!
by cfk on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 06:24:39 PM PDT
Years ago, I read a book by Robert Heinlein, whose name escapes me, probably because it wasn't one of his strongest. Nevertheless, it had a great conceit:
books are the literal gateway to other universes
So, one literally could go off to see the wizard in Oz, visit Middle earth, etc. I loved that idea. Who to visit first, the Ents or the elves, hmmmm....
"It's not enough to be right. You still have to use your nice voice." -said by my then six-year-old daughter in reference to the Lorax
by be the change you seek on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 07:37:54 PM PDT
now that you mention it, it would be hard to choose where to go first...I will spend a lot of time thinking about this, now. :) Thanks!
by cfk on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 07:41:41 PM PDT
Tunnel in the Sky
Frugal Fridays, where the cheap come to chat.
by sarahnity on Thu Jan 17, 2008 at 12:26:51 PM PDT
I saw "Heinlein" and "door into other worlds" and ran down the completely wrong path.
I don't recall the one you are talking about and I thought I read all the Heinlein except his last few (everything before Friday, that is).
Tunnel in the Sky is about the futuristic Outward Bound-type students who get stranded on the planet they are sent to.
For an unusual and funny take on books being literal gateways to other worlds, check out Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series.
by sarahnity on Thu Jan 17, 2008 at 12:31:20 PM PDT
My sister is 2 years older than I, and I learned to read when she started school.
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. --Jorge Luis Borges
by Marlyn on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 06:01:53 PM PDT
very well, too. Please go home and kiss your parents and express your appreciation. Warmest regards, Doc.
by Translator on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 06:07:51 PM PDT
Any passing interest by any of her children would send my mother searching for a book about it.
When my eldest turned two and her sister was a newborn, my mom bought a subscription to the Seuss books for them (just as she had for her own children).
Here's how that turned out:
We have video, somewhere, of my eldest at about four "reading" Mr. Brown Can Moo to her sister, who helps turn the pages and occasionally corrects her sister. She was still a little shy of full word recognition but she understood flow and timing.
On day one of first grade, my eldest read all of the posted decorations and such to her new classmates. Her teacher told us later that inwardly she said, "Uh oh."
McCain has no core principles that the American people can trust he'll follow from one day to the next. We should worry about his principals, too.
by algebrateacher on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 07:49:44 PM PDT
thanks for the smile...how cool!!
My book about Horton sitting on the egg is in tatters because I read it to the kids so often. It is in the guest bedroom and is read when my grandson visits overnight.
I have the one about the King's Stilts and the 500 Hats, but he got a bit restless...maybe next time he is here, though...he is four.
He got in trouble in preschool. The teacher wanted them to tell her in a few words what the story was about and he decided to embellish it and make it more exciting.
by cfk on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 07:59:27 PM PDT
your story reminded me of bursting into tears in kindergarten or first grade because we were going over the alphabet......again!!
I couldn't have been fun to teach. "Give me something else to read" "What's for extra credit?"
Hill Country Ride for AIDS my HCRA Page
by anotherdemocrat on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 08:01:05 PM PDT
family enemy because she was so completely unsupportive. All my daughter wanted to do was read and classwork involved circle-all-the-letter-b's. The teacher even referred her to the school district social worker because she thought we were forcing her to be competitive with her older sister.
In the end, the social worker decided my daughter was "a lovely child" who was great fun to talk to about the books that she read- the ones borrowed from the Principal's office.
by algebrateacher on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 08:15:19 PM PDT
I had a student in class who was a super star and did beautiful work for college prep English. She made a Shakespeare stage for a project that was amazing.
One day, I saw her mom in the hallway and told her how wonderful her daughter was...her comment was, "You should have seen her sister!"
What? omg...
Then, when I thought this young lady should try the honor classes in college, she said her older sister had told her not to do it because they would be too hard for her.
Nothing I said could block out her sister's advice...sad.
The other student who was her best friend and who was also amazing was treated even worse by her family. I had her younger brother and I asked the mom at PT conferences how the daughter was doing in college...the mother said it was a waste for her daughter to be doing college since she was not a boy...
those were the days my friend...
by cfk on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 08:26:09 PM PDT
I was never told not to read anything - the bookshelves in my room when I was 10 had things like The Iliad and The Odyssey on them, so I read them. I read Shakespeare for the same reason - I liked it. I didn't know they were advanced-level reading. They were good stories. I have always felt that there is nothing that can be done with words that I can't do.
Numbers are a different story. I've never been good with them. I like science - especially astronomy & cosmology, but I need it in words. I took all the "liberal arts" astronomy classes I could in college - they finally said I had taken all the astronomy I could, that the next classes were real science & given how hard I had worked on the classes I had taken, I really shouldn't take any more. The class where we studied the Drake Equation (for figuring out if there is ET Life) nearly killed me. I loved it, but I might have even gotten a "C"in it. (remember, I used to be just like Hermione Granger - a C would have been shocking).
by anotherdemocrat on Thu Jan 17, 2008 at 05:53:29 AM PDT
I said here before I don't remember not knowing how to read - made someone laugh (was that cfk or sarahnity?) with my story of writing a protest letter about the cancellation of Star Trek - when I was 4!
I always want more story, more, more, more story. In the case of ST, those people were my friends and the TV people were taking them away from me. How could Mr Spock find me & marry me if he wasn't on the TV? I still have trouble putting down a book or turning off the TV at bed time. There's always more story, & the characters will change when you're not looking.
by anotherdemocrat on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 07:55:16 PM PDT
wide narrow
View Story | 178 comments