Our Weekly Reader

I don't mean to belittle the efforts of teachers or librarians. My mother was a teacher, I've taught, my wife teaches. And I owe a debt of gratitude to my sophomore English teacher; I was a diehard reader alreaady when I took his class, but he showed me what reading literature could really mean beyond just enjoying the story.

But I don't think I'm overstating the case for a "readers' solidarity" as a significant factor in habituating young people to read. First, the inspiring teacher or parent or older sibling, as I tried to indicate, is often the exciting, necessary first step.

But he or she is often not a sufficient step.

The study, which I still can't remember, blast it, found that a sizable portion of adults, when asked, could recall loving a particular book when they were young, could recall a degree of excitement and discovery in reading. But when asked about their current reading habits, they confessed they rarely read at all.

So what happened? One can't cite the usual suspects -- adult pressures, full-time jobs, parenting demands -- because these same factors do not prevent enthusiastic readers from grabbing books. Something deterred these would-be readers before they became adults.

I think that in hindsight many of us recall vividly the sense of discovery, the enlightenment that a teacher or older relative gave us, because this opened up a new world. And that moment tends to overshadow the more ordinary process of reader exchange that followed, that cemented our relationship to books.

For years, I've told people about going to our local branch library every few weeks by myself and basically reading my way through every book there that was of absolutely any interest to a 10-year-old.

What I didn't recall -- until I read this study -- was the fact that all of my siblings and I read. So we were actually sharing all the time, comparing which books we liked, steering each other away from books we didn't. We even pooled our money to subscribe to 7 different comic books.

It's not the eye-opening flash that makes a regular reader; it's the dailyness of it, the sense that it's a bedrock habit, part of who we are. And that doesn't require a book club, Lindemann. Just one other person when you were younger. Today, my siblings and I probably couldn't agree on almost any book we'd all like to read. We'd make a lousy book club.

And the fact that you're posting on book/daddy would indicate you're not completely self-isolated from other readers.

I got hooked on reading when I was a kid in New Orleans. I used to stay in the library all day, just picking whatever title caught my eye. Then a librarian gave me The Confederacy of Dunces and then Faulkner and then just a list and I've never stopped reading - literature of all genres. So I became a writer and published my book, The Beatitudes, Book I in The New Orleans Trilogy, and am giving all of the royalties directly to the New Orleans Library Foundation to help rebuild the public libraries. Great, you say? Well, in "marketing" the book - I even have a campaign The Beatitudes Network-Rebuilding the Public Libraries of New Orleans and a blog www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com - for the three months I have pushed to rebuild the public libraries of NOLA, people buying the book via amazon, at art and book fairs, on MySpace, but the hardest sector of the public, the one that has ignored me the most (and yes I have the full cooperation of NOLA Library Foundation, using their 501c non-profit status with the published) is The Public Librarians. Yes, that just breaks my heart. What has happened to you, librarians? You who are supposed to instill reading in the young, indeed all of us? Your libraries have become places for videos and computers. Yes, I know. Budgets are cut. But when someone tries to help, why do you ignore them?
Lyn LeJeune
The Beatitudes Network at www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com

I read a lot of books/authors that none of my friends is particularly interested in when I was young. I was just interested in the books. Not to say that a critical mass of such individuals exists, or that the factor you cite isn't extraordinarily helpful to readers' development, but you may be overstating the case.

One place where that sharing of an interest is supposed to happen (theoretically, anyway) is in the classroom, and it can, at least if the book is not taught in a deadeningly dull manner. But mostly it doesn't.

Am I the only reader out there who's never felt the urge to join a book group?

While I don't wish to denounce the aims of this article, I do think you under play the value of individual reading. I grew up in a house where no one talked about books and with friends who only read what was assigned and if it hadn't been for the encouragement of a few elder figures in my life, I might have been the same. Fortunately my parents had friends who were always willing to lend me books to read (they all seemed to be amused by my voracity, but I digress). My point is that while teachers should encourage all students to read and read well, if they find one or two who seem to be more invested than the others they should by all means encourage them