Celebrate Literacy in SeptemberBy: DG Marion Cheney, RC of Dover
I have shared my challenging childhood days with some of you.
At the age of four, I started immersing myself in books. It was a way to escape from all the turbulence in my home.
My Mother and I would make our weekly visits to the public library where I would fill my red radio flyer wagon with books and head home.
I coveted my stamped library card collection stored in my box of treasures.
In first grade I was tested at a fourth-grade reading level. I was bored with reading assignments. I read everything and anything within reach, including Peyton Place*, that I brought to school in my book bag.
After a lengthy discussion with the school principal my folks decided to invest in a complete edition of encyclopedias…I was in heaven.
I still love to read. In the words of Gary Paulsen, an American writer of mostly children’s and coming of age books, “Reading isn’t passive. I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustration. Reading for me is spending time with a friend. A book is a friend you can never have too many”.
A book is a dream you hold in your hand. Share a dream with someone this month.
*For our younger readers, Peyton Place was a novel written by Maine author Grace Metalious, about three women who are forced to come to terms with their identity, both as women and as sexual beings. One of the best-selling works in publishing history, it was set in a small, conservative, gossipy town in Maine in the 1940’s. This 1950s book scandalized and captivated America—and eventually destroyed its author’s life.