I love the way summer makes me think of books as much as beach. The whole idea of summer reading reminds me of childhood exploration and the realization that an entire new world could exist within a collected sheaf of papers. I remember my first really great summer reading experience. I think I was about 8 or 9. I used to watch my older sister and my good friend lying on chaise lounges with books instead of running around or swimming and I used to wonder — what’s the point of that? My God, how boring!! But then, my mother took me to the library and said, “Go ahead, pick out whatever you want and it will be your summer book.” I don’t remember the title, alas, but I remember the story. There was an adorable little alien creature who had an adorable little spaceship and he traveled around making adorable little friends. A classic! But even more, I remember the feeling of lying on my own chaise lounge, just like my sister, and reading and reading and reading in the shade, in my bathing suit, with a glass of lemonade on the ground beside me and my mother coming by every now and again to smooth out my hair and give me a kiss. Reading was calm, quiet, safe. I found happiness in books that summer, and I guess the rest, as they say, is history.
I was also reminiscing with a friend the other day about reading to your kids aloud during the summer. I always read to my kids when they were little. But Number 2 Son and I got into the rhythm, over 4 summers, of taking a longer amount of time, mostly in bed at night but sometimes in scattered times throughout a lazy summer’s day, to read together. I remembered that these were long adult books that I read to him. Not the kids’ picture books you think of when you imagine reading to your kids in bed. But aging brains being what they are, I couldn’t remember what books they were. It was over a decade ago, after all. So I emailed my now grown-up busy son hundreds of miles away and asked him what we had read over all those summers. Now, Number 2 Son has many wonderful qualities, but timely email answering is not usually one of them. But on this occasion the response was in my in-box in less than ten minutes. It said: “the entire Tolkien Trilogy. Plus The Hobbit.” In the immortal words of Maurice Chevalier, “Oh yes. I remember it well.” But even better, clearly so did he.
And this year, summer reading has taken on yet another meaning for me. This week I did the first of a group of events around my books at a local public library here on Martha’s Vineyard. I read excerpts from A Clash of Innocents, showed the slide presentation of photographs by the kids from Anjali House that goes with it, led a fascinating discussion about Cambodia, and even sold a bunch of books. Here are some pictures:
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| A member of the audience brought along this amazing quilt she created from photographs she took during her own trip to Cambodia ten years ago. I wish you could see it in person. It’s beautiful and haunting! |
Summer reading. What does it mean to you?
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