Summer Reading

Last year our library director gave us a reading challenge for the summer. It provided me an opportunity to read a number of books I would not have normally chosen for my summer reading pleasure. I found that I really enjoyed a number of the books from the various genres in the challenge. This year we have been given another challenge. There are not as many books inn the challenge this year, but that does not make it any less of a charge. I have almost completed reading my selections for this summer. I have one book remaining. However, this does not mean that I have finished reading for the summer. No, I have lists of books in a number of different places (online and off) of books I want to read. You see reading takes me away to places that I may otherwise not be able to go in my lifetime. This morning I was listening to the news and I heard this quote from Nora Ephron....(post from Goodreads.com).

Nora Ephron

5/19/1941 - 6/21/2012

author, blogger, director, filmmaker, journalist,
novelist, playwright, screenwriter

“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.” 
― Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman


...and I could not agree more. Her words moved me and that is what reading, and actually writing, are all about. I don't know a better way to explain to someone how important reading is in my life. I have never been much of a writer, but over the past few years I have forced myself to become a writer through my blogging. By writing about the books I read I not only validate the author's word, but also the time I have invested in reading those words. I can put into words my own thoughts on the characters, plot twists, setting, etc. Through reading I have become a writer. 


I guess my point is, although most of our students are not reading when they leave our doors, they have been exposed to great books, stories, and authors, through story times, library lessons, classroom read alouds,  and  individual and family checkout. I hope these experiences have made an impact on each and every one of their lives. I hope our students can find the bliss Ms. Ephron describes through the pages of a book this summer and every day after.


Happy Summer Reading!