My Dad’s Bookshelf

When I was small, my dad would read to my sisters and me at bedtime.  Dad was a good storyteller.  He would use

funny voices and dramatic pauses.  Some of his favorite stories to read to us included Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss (high squeaky Who voices) and McBroom’s Ghost by Sid Fleischman (Willjillhesterchesterpeterpollytimtommarylarryandlittleclarinda. Try saying that in one breath.) Even though McBroom’s Ghost isn’t available in the KDL catalogue, don’t worry; it can be ordered through the Michigan eLibrary (MeL) catalogue.  If you aren’t familiar with MeL, ask a librarian.   

 

Dad read us stories from the Old Testament. His beautiful reading voice made even the most difficult-to-understand passages easy to listen to.  I was in high school before I realized that not everybody knew the stories of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  (Bible, Book of Daniel chapters 1 and 3) 

 

I suppose Dad got bored reading the same stories over and over again so he would do silly things to change them up.  The one I remember the most is when he started reading the title page before he would read the story. “Viking, Published by Penguin Group, Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014...Manufactured in Spain, Set in Quorum, Designed by Kelly McIntyre.” We would try to cover the words so he couldn’t read them.  We would try to turn the page faster or put our hands over his mouth.  We’d try to reason with him, “You’re not supposed to read that part!” but he persisted until he had read every teeny tiny word.  

When I became a teenager and had outgrown having my dad read to me, I started browsing the bookshelves in our house looking for something to read.  I found The Good Earth trilogy by Pearl Buck, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and a whole shelf of Louis L’Amour westerns.  There were books of early Peanuts comic strips, self-help books by Stephen Covey, Mad Magazine collections and so much more.  I wonder if my dad knew that I was reading all of his old paperbacks.  I wonder what would have happened if I had tried to discuss them with him.  He must have known what I was reading because he started buying me the latest book by Terry Brooks every year for my birthday.  (His birthday was a week after mine, and he always wanted to read them as soon as I was done with them, so there might have been an ulterior motive.) 

I grew up and moved out and had a family of my own.  Reading to my kids has been one of the joys of my life.  They loved the Froggy series by Jonathan London, the early readers by Dr. Seuss and Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel.  My youngest was about nine when I quoted Winnie the Pooh to him and realized that he didn’t get the reference.  So, I read the story to him, and he loved it so much that we ended up reading the entire collection together.  ("Mom, read me more funny Pooh stories.")  We read the entire Harry Potter series together as a family.  Several chapters were read in the basement by flashlight during a tornado warning.   

Now that my kids are too big to want me to read to them, I have to find other ways to keep myself entertained.  But I am curating my bookshelf in hopes that someday there will once again be a little person with big pleading eyes begging, “Read to me.”