What Happened?

 Do you remember these Library Cards?  I often buy old books, and this particular former library book looked like new.  When I opened it I understood why.  Apparently, it had never been checked out.  How sad.  The book was published by the Kansas State Historical Society, and Miss Louise Barry's thick book of a decade of research, with the author's goal to document a record of known activity in the pre-Kansas region from the appearance of the first Europeans in the mid-1500s to 1854, is not for everyone.  

It includes the early history of the displacement of  Indigenous  people, and of the surveyors running lines to determine reservation boundaries for of promises such as the following example in 1828; It guaranteed eleven millions of acres of land and a perpetual outlet to the west, a permanent home...which shall, under the most solemn guarantee of the United States, be and remain theirs forever--a home that shall never, in all future time, be embarrassed by having extended around it the line, or placed over it the jurisdiction of a territory or state, nor be pressed upon by the extension, in any way, of any of the limits of any existing territory or state...

 Of course, we now know that the promise, with all of its grand words, did not last.  The book is a valuable record, but not intended for most readers.  I do hope it can still be found in libraries for scholarly researchers, and I will try to get my copy to such a place.  

However, my blog was inspired by reading about a college student seeking help from a college counselor.  She had been a good student in high school, but she was struggling with the reading assignments she was being given in college.  The counselor asked whether there had been reading assignments given to her in high school, and she acknowledged that there had been.  However, she said that her high school assignments had only been a few pages.  She was overwhelmed by being asked to read an entire book.  That was just too much for her! 

I assume it was a novel or a biography that she was assigned to read over a period of a few days.  How sad it is that she had never been guided into the pleasure of vicariously traveling to a new place and immersing herself into the life of a fictional person or reading the Diary of Anne Frank to better understand war and hate, or reading about an actress or an athlete or a scientist that encouraged her to pursue a dream of her own.  

The joy of reading is best acquired by being read to by parents and seeing them read books of their own.  Children learn by watching, and if they see parents and older siblings reading, it is more likely that they will want to learn to read too.  Reading not only shares stories, it introduces children to the lives of children who are different, it allows them to travel to faraway places, it allows then to experience sad events so that if sadness really comes into their lives they can better understand how to face it.  Studies also show that meeting all kinds of people in books makes children   more empathetic.  

How sad that the college girl that sought help from the counselor had not been exposed to books from childhood.  Having scary fairy tales read to a child sitting safely in a parent's lap is the best way to confront evil witches for the first time.  Feeling sad for Black Beauty with its eventual reunion is a gentler way to prepare for the inevitable death of a pet.  Children who read, whether fiction or biography, benefit from experiencing what it was like to live in the 1800s, or in a different country, or to be of a different ethnicity, or even to experiencing the death of a fictional friend.  Learning these things vicariously, they are better prepared for actual events in their lives.  Think of all the things that coed had missed by restricting her experiences to her own immediate life or perhaps the few pages of her prior limited reading assignments.  How much empathy for those different from herself can she feel, if she had never cried while reading a book about someone different?  How can she ever learn from history if she only reads text books, which is much different from reading historic fiction and becoming fictional friends with a Jewish girl in Germany at the start of W.W. II, if she overlooked reading the Diary of Anne Frank?

To Librarians making room on the shelves for new books, why not guide young readers to classic books that their parents and grandparents read and loved years ago.  And parents, please read to your children, even when you may think they are too young to understand.  Read fairy tales, and buy them books of their own.  

I have been in waiting rooms and have seen parents give their small children their phones to play with.  I would much rather plant the seed for reading in a child's hands than the seed for living online.    Help them fall in love with reading when it still seems exciting to master that skill.

I don't expect many people to go in search of the book I introduced at the beginning of this blog, but I do hope I can plant a seed or two that encourages a few to read to babies very early, to buy them books of their own, to let them see you reading while they are young enough to emulate you.  And, get them a library card of their own early!  Our community has so many wonderful Libraries! 

A  P.S. to Librarians:  Please keep children's classics on the shelves.  Classics do not grow old.  The Illustrators from the 1980s and 1990s and a few more years are fantastic.  Please keep them on the shelves where kids (and parents) can find them.