Back to the Beginning

 It's almost Thanksgiving, which makes me smile. I have so much to be thankful for that it makes my head spin. 

One of my Thanksgiving traditions is to reread my favorite childhood book: "A Cranberry Thanksgiving" written by Wende Devlin & illustrated by Harry Devlin. It's a great story about forgiveness and not judging people by their appearance. My mom read it to me (and my sister, Mary) every year when we were kids. I loved it enough to hunt down a copy long after it was out of print. If you can find it, it's a great, fun read with the kids.

So then I waxed nostalgic and thought about reading. Honestly, I can't remember a time when I couldn't read. I'm sure there was, I just don't remember it. I'm also thankful to have lived this long. 

Officially I "learned how to read" in first grade under the tutelage of Miss Magnuson at Excelsior Elementary School. Unofficially, I owe it all to my mom. She was the one who spent time with the kids reading. As a kid, there were always books around the house and around my grandparents' house. In the days before television and the internet took over, reading was a much bigger thing. My dad read, too, but his major contribution was working for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and bringing home a newspaper or two every day. That also contributed to my being a news junkie.

When my mom was expecting me, she would have been reading to Mary, so I got the benefits, too. Then she read to me. Then with me. Then she let me go read whatever I wanted. Pretty wise work from someone who went to school in a two-room schoolhouse. Something from there made her understand that reading was the key to the world. All of my siblings are readers, too, so they both learned from her and lent their support to my habit. I can never say thank you enough. 

She was also, and I've said this before, the grammar police before that was a term. Anytime, any place, she had no problem correcting your grammar. Grammar isn't perhaps my strongest suit, but I can put together a complete sentence. There, their, and they're? I'm on it!

But in the end, it was always about reading books. I was that nerdy kid with his nose stuck in a book. I, like so many others, stopped reading for fun during college, but go back to it later. Reading, and thinking about what one has read, is one of the greatest skills there is. The desire to read is simply a great gift that I'm thankful for. I honestly can't imagine my life without reading. 

My fallback genre is historical non-fiction- I could read that all the time! However, I now read fiction again, mainly to get a feel for other writers and how stories develop. When they're good, they're good. From "A Cranberry Thanksgiving" to "Where the Crawdads Sing," there's something for everyone, which is another bit of magic. 

And when they're not, it gives me hope for my future. Anyway, I'm grateful for the ability and the desire to read whatever I want. Thanks, Mom!