I remember the first moment I could read. After several weeks of studying 'Janet and John' the primer readers of my era, and after several weeks of playing a guessing game, one morning it suddenly came to me ... I don't have to listen intently to the words of others in the circle [we sat in circles for reading, and it was easy to work out what sentence each had to read ... out loud]; I knew what those squiggles on the page meant.
Anyone who has ever watched Oprah will recognise that moment as a 'light bulb' moment [no, not a daffodil bulb, or a tulip bulb moment, but a light bulb moment ... illumination shines forth and all that]. It is a moment of great interest, and life is seldom ever the same after that momentous discovery. We are free to read and go on journeys, in the mind via the written word, to exciting, scary, exhilarating, and educational trips designed to increase our understanding of the wide world around us.
At the moment I knew, though I will confess that the picture alongside may have aided that discovery, the text I was to read on the page, said, "Janet saw the aeroplane."
Our school had a library. Now a library is one of the most fascinating buildings in any town, and any home that has a whole room full of books on shelves is to me, the height of luxury. When I began school the building was elderly; it was decreed a new school be erected on the same site. However part of the playground would need be sacrificed for the boys' toilet block, and the boiler house. Three massive oak trees were cut down! These trees were not taken to the local tip, nor sold to the wood and coal merchant for winter fuel, these oaks were carefully sawn into timber from which tables and chairs were constructed. The library at our school was fully furnished with oak table and chairs.
It wasn't until we reached the age of about seven that classes were taken to the library once a week and the taking out and exchanging of books encouraged. Milly Molly Mandy was a favourite ... I have forgotten what it was about, but do still remember that name ... doesn't it just roll of the tongue! I read Sue Barton, Nurse, books; somehow they didn't entice me into the nursing fraternity; I read about ballet dancers, and boarding schools in far off England; I read the story of Heidi in the mountains and her grandfather and friend Peter, I devoured the Anne of Green Gables tales delighting in the adventures of a fellow red-head. It was a simple task to exchange Anne with myself, though perhaps there were just a few too many adventures for me to handle!
Of course as one grows the variety of reading material alters. I do remember reading P G Wodehouse and his adventures of Bertie Wooster, though must confess to not remembering much detail about them either.
The other day, after several weeks of suffering from hay fever and its attendant miseries [stuffy ears, itchy eyes, a scratchy throat and a raspy cough] I decided to spend time indoors, away from pollen and dust. A book to read! I searched through the bookcase. Many old favourites lay there, some having been read from cover to cover several times. This time I desired a 'new read.'
We attend garage sales and fairs; both excellent sources of exciting books at a reasonable price. Some have inscriptions in the fly-leaf that lead to conversations bordering on gossip. Who would write that on an inscription? Oh! this book is over 70 years old! Often there are as many tales to be told in an inscription as within the pages themselves.
This particular day I chose a P G Wodehouse book. I began to read. I had forgotten his wonderful ability to describe a situation, a humorous description that leaves little to the imagination as to how the character looks.
Even today P G Wodehouse is giving me as much pleasure as he did all of half a century ago as I follow the improbable, but made plausible by seemingly simple narration, times of the main characters. Oh yes, there is a lot to be said for that moment of realisation when I first recognised the simple sentence, "Janet saw the aeroplane
Anyone who has ever watched Oprah will recognise that moment as a 'light bulb' moment [no, not a daffodil bulb, or a tulip bulb moment, but a light bulb moment ... illumination shines forth and all that]. It is a moment of great interest, and life is seldom ever the same after that momentous discovery. We are free to read and go on journeys, in the mind via the written word, to exciting, scary, exhilarating, and educational trips designed to increase our understanding of the wide world around us.
At the moment I knew, though I will confess that the picture alongside may have aided that discovery, the text I was to read on the page, said, "Janet saw the aeroplane."
Our school had a library. Now a library is one of the most fascinating buildings in any town, and any home that has a whole room full of books on shelves is to me, the height of luxury. When I began school the building was elderly; it was decreed a new school be erected on the same site. However part of the playground would need be sacrificed for the boys' toilet block, and the boiler house. Three massive oak trees were cut down! These trees were not taken to the local tip, nor sold to the wood and coal merchant for winter fuel, these oaks were carefully sawn into timber from which tables and chairs were constructed. The library at our school was fully furnished with oak table and chairs.
It wasn't until we reached the age of about seven that classes were taken to the library once a week and the taking out and exchanging of books encouraged. Milly Molly Mandy was a favourite ... I have forgotten what it was about, but do still remember that name ... doesn't it just roll of the tongue! I read Sue Barton, Nurse, books; somehow they didn't entice me into the nursing fraternity; I read about ballet dancers, and boarding schools in far off England; I read the story of Heidi in the mountains and her grandfather and friend Peter, I devoured the Anne of Green Gables tales delighting in the adventures of a fellow red-head. It was a simple task to exchange Anne with myself, though perhaps there were just a few too many adventures for me to handle!
Of course as one grows the variety of reading material alters. I do remember reading P G Wodehouse and his adventures of Bertie Wooster, though must confess to not remembering much detail about them either.
The other day, after several weeks of suffering from hay fever and its attendant miseries [stuffy ears, itchy eyes, a scratchy throat and a raspy cough] I decided to spend time indoors, away from pollen and dust. A book to read! I searched through the bookcase. Many old favourites lay there, some having been read from cover to cover several times. This time I desired a 'new read.'
We attend garage sales and fairs; both excellent sources of exciting books at a reasonable price. Some have inscriptions in the fly-leaf that lead to conversations bordering on gossip. Who would write that on an inscription? Oh! this book is over 70 years old! Often there are as many tales to be told in an inscription as within the pages themselves.
This particular day I chose a P G Wodehouse book. I began to read. I had forgotten his wonderful ability to describe a situation, a humorous description that leaves little to the imagination as to how the character looks.
Even today P G Wodehouse is giving me as much pleasure as he did all of half a century ago as I follow the improbable, but made plausible by seemingly simple narration, times of the main characters. Oh yes, there is a lot to be said for that moment of realisation when I first recognised the simple sentence, "Janet saw the aeroplane
