Of Books and Imaginations

I learned to read rather late, at the age of 8 and in the third grade. My mother reports that I came home from Ms. N's class and announced, "She told me I HAD to learn to read. Nobody told before that I HAD to read." My mother confirmed that it was a must-do situation so I went ahead and learned to read.

I've not stopped since.

I can still remember the joy of finding a whole new series of books by an author whose work I admired. The libraries of my childhood were truly magical places. I would look at all those books and feel that a whole new world was just waiting for me to open the cover and slip inside. I was a quiet little girl, sometimes struggling to make friends; desperately afraid of rejection and unsure of myself. But in the world of books, why, I could do anything; I could be anyone. And books became my very best friends, feeding my wild imagination.

For some years, I actively believed that if I found the right portal, I could slip back in time and go to the places in my books. I'd dream myself to sleep at night imagining myself inserted into the worlds of the stories I read. I almost always preferred books about places and times different from my own (no wonder I'm a history teacher living a coast away from the place where I grew up).

No books brought me as much happy reading as Laura Ingalls Wilder's books about life as a pioneer girl. I read those stories over and over. Within 48 hours of moving to Nebraska, at the age of 26, I made a trip to DeSmet, South Dakota, where Laura lived as a girl and young woman. In the years that I lived in Nebraska, I came to admire the prairie because of Laura's descriptions of the beauty of the sky and her appreciation for the feeling of the endless space.

Laura wrote one book about the childhood of her husband. It takes place in Malone, New York, in 1866, the year that Almanzo Wilder turns nine. Next week I will start reading Farmer Boy to JT's 3rd grade class, a room of children who will also turn nine this year. The world of woolen underwear, training your own yoke of oxen, and teachers who board with the families of the school is foreign to 3rd graders living in 2008. But Almanzo's joy in a ride on a sled, his satisfaction when he gets to do the things that his older brother is permitted, his admiration of his mother's homemade donuts; those experiences are timeless.

Each week I'll read a chapter to the 3rd grade. I hope that they find themselves caught up in the story and glad to hear about Almanzo's life. I know that I will.