Summer Reading Program (aka A Bridge Between the Past Towards Hope)

Do you associate summertime with reading? Are you a reader? If so, did you notice a shift in what genre you read? If not a reader, have you considered why that is?

Over a lifetime, my own relationship with reading has been complicated. Times where I loved it and read voraciously. Times where it was forced as a tool to occupy my time after completing my schoolwork faster than others…which included writing additional book reports to “prove” my time was used “wisely” (no thank you!) As a result of feeling punished for completing my schoolwork, I adapted and learned to avoid reading altogether. Thus, my on again, off again love with reading, right on through seminary when the common retort concerning suggested reading lists was, “It’s only a lot of reading if you do it all.”

Since the pandemic, my pendulum has swung back into the realm of love of reading books. All books. Non-fiction in the morning. Audiobooks in the car. Fiction in the evening. My daily dose of reading across various formats and genres. Fiction is always purchased locally, first run or resale. (Shout out to Mystery to Me and to The Book Deal!) Paperback is my personal preference due to arthritis in my thumb which makes holding a book taxing at times. My non-fiction readings tend most often to be digital. (Because Lord knows, lacking an elevator to my office means NOT wanting to move out the 28 boxes of books that moved in!)

I know adults who long for the childhood days when the Scholastic Book Fair took place. However, it is my childhood public library’s “Summer Reading Program” that feels missing from my life.

Mine were the days before the “personal pan style pizza 🍕” rewards some libraries offered (and is now an app for elementary aged readers). Instead, we simply had slips of paper to write the title, author, date, and our name to then affix it to the library wall (often decorated as a tree that our books filled its foliage)

Yet, no paper rewards were earned until AFTER you told the librarian what you liked about the book. NOT a book report, just what YOU liked (or maybe even didn’t like). That personal time with the librarian was the true reward that made those summers beloved seasons of reading.

She would listen closely and at the end, if I asked, she (yes, it was always a “she” in those days) would recommend another title based on what I could say about what I’d liked or disliked about a book. As a kid, what a gift! To have an adult take real interest in my response to a book or author. An adult who encouraged me to describe with real words what the book meant to me, and not what was expected for a book report. 

Over time, there was one particular librarian whose recommendations were such a gift to me. The first title I checked out at the beginning of each summer was The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson (originally published in 1956). The Salem witch trials fascinated me but there were no titles about witchcraft in the parochial school library of my youth. Each summer, though, this librarian knew that it was the first title on my reading list. Each summer, she had it waiting there for me once school let out. (I can still see her face but sadly cannot remember her name.)

In recent years, a copy of Jackson’s 1984 reprint book made it into my household library in case my daughters wanted to read it when they were young. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. It’s my own loss for not asking them or sharing with them what it’d meant to me when I was young. 

Though I’ve not found a Summer Reading Program to compare with those of my youth, creating my own version has been possible thanks to the awareness of some booksellers that summer reading programs are also for the young and the young at heart. This summer, the Half Price Books Bingo card came home with me. One of the squares includes the prompt
“Read a Book You Loved as a Child.” 

Children’s books are short, so not only did Jackson’s witchcraft book see the light of day, but also The Peculiar Miss Pickett by Nancy R. Julian (think Mary Poppins meets Miss Frizzle), and The Ghost Next Door by Willy Folk St. John.

Hmmm, there appears to be a theme here. 

In the years soon after these early reading ventures, C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia entered my world and I theirs. (Tolkien’s Middle Earth had too many strange names for my mind to keep characters straight so I sadly gave up trying.) But, these childhood stories were packed away…not because they were childish, but that they had witches. It is only now, as an Episcopal priest, that I’m beginning to wrestle with and reclaim the parts of my own story that the churches I’d attended in the past made me feel shamed over. (Imagine if little kid me had heard about Saul seeking the aid of the Witch of Endor to talk to the prophet Samuel! Only to have Samuel reproach him for calling him back to this world!)

What a thing to discover and to reflect upon! What fascinated us as children? What worlds did we want to learn more about? Why did we stop (or continue) with the stories that filled us?

What about you? What was your younger self’s reading habit vs. your current self? What are you currently reading? Do you wish you’d read more?

I’d love to hear what fed you then and feeds you now. Or if you also would like to come back to the world of reading.

Reclaiming my own love of reading has taken time. Yet, in a world seeking “hope,” the sharing of words (and art) still are able to do so. In the days, weeks, and years to come, watch for reading as one of the bridges used on our journey towards becoming who God always knew we could be and offering hope to us all.