Library's Summer Reading Program

Times have certainly changed.

Young and old have embraced blackberries, Ipods, cell phones that do everything including phone calls, and wireless hookups. I’m so techno-unsavvy that I’m sure this little list is out of date.

For someone like me who lost the technology battle in the era of Transformer toys, it is heartening to know that some things have not changed. One such tradition, the summer reading program, has begun in libraries across the United States.

Readers and wanna-be readers gathered around the table in the heart of our little Florida library to fill out the color coordinated forms. Then they searched the shelves for new reading adventures, and began fulfilling the requirements to read for twenty days and earn a free book.

If you see the ‘free books,’ you will realize these readers are motivated by more than the flimsy paperback books offered as rewards.

Reading is its own reward.

Holding a book in your hands, getting lost in the story, learning new facts that expand your world, meeting characters, visiting exotic landscapes – whether interior or exterior, will leave readers forever changed.

There’s nothing more exciting than introducing a child to books, or for that matter, introducing others to a favorite author.

Not long ago, while I shelved books as part of my library page job, I saw two women sitting together at a table. One was obviously teaching the other to read. They came to that same table every morning for several weeks and often as I worked, I could hear the one middle-aged woman sounding out words, fitting them together into sentences and stumbling over this new ‘technology.’ Her table mate nodded and murmured encouragement or offered assistance.

Figuring out this business of reading gave that woman such pleasure, more, I suspect, than deciphering the secrets of computer-generated technology. When the sounds and the rules began to fit together into recognizable words, her face would transform into a smile that lit the entire room. Her teacher’s face glowed even brighter.

Many mornings I worked, hidden by book shelves where I listened to her, hearing not just the words she sounded out. But also the growing joy in her voice as she mastered something her children had been doing since kindergarten. I could see her world growing with each session. Her steps lightened, her posture changed from victim to CEO of her world. Reading will do that for you.

For some reason the reading program is especially popular this year. The parking lot fills before the library doors open each morning. I step over little kids lying on the floor of the children’s section, their eyes never leaving the pages of the books in their hands. Parents and children hunt through the nonfiction section for books that will tell them interesting facts.

Several of our regular patrons bring in their fat record books that list every book they have read and another list for those they want to read. They meticulously search the collection, checking off books as they find them. Commuters hunt through our collection of audio books on cassettes and CDs, so they can enjoy books on their long drives. One admitted to driving several times around the block before turning into her driveway because, “I’d just gotten to a good part and had to find out what would happen!”

All walk out of the library filled with enthusiasm about the books clutched in their hands. Books they will step into, lose themselves in once they’re at home, or at the beach, or on vacation, or combating insomnia.

And all of those tiny little faces entranced by picture books as parents snuggle close and read to their sons and daughters. Is there any part of parenting better than that? I don’t think a cell phone, Ipod, or even blogging can compare to a good book, enjoyed alone or shared with someone you love.

Calling on Harry Potter Fans!

It is countdown time! Now that I live in this Dr. Seuss land called Central Florida where most people work for a mouse or a group devoted to outer space exploration, I can't wait for Harry Potter to join this happy chaos. Universal Studios Theme Park is adding not only rides, but basically a Harry Potter land. A transcript of the announcement is on the Leaky Cauldron website or the Orlando Sentinel's news story. The planned completion is targeted for 2010.

We never outgrow the wonder found in great children's literature and I am one of the millions who fell under Harry Potter's spell from the first moment. I've ordered my copy of the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows from Amazon and I'm waiting rather impatiently for the release of the next movie on July 11. I found the official Warner Bros. website and enjoy watching the trailers and teasers.

It is a two-fer month, July is. A new Harry Potter movie and another book! Sadly the last in the series, unless we can twist the author's arm to continue the saga. Special events are planned with the author, J.K. Rowling including a midnight signing and book reading the day the book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, is released. At midnight, July 21, 2007, the author will meet with more than 1,000 lucky readers to sign books at the Natural History Museum in London. Approximately 500 of those lucky few will be invited to listen to the author read.

Not having spent much time online looking for Harry Potter links, I'm amazed at the J.K. Rowling official website and all of the fun bells and whistles! It refers to the Leaky Cauldron site hosted by Melissa Anelli, a freelance writer who is working on a book tentatively titled: Harry, a History of the Fiction, Fans and Phenomenon of Harry Potter to be published November, 2008 by Simon and Schuster Pocket Books. The Leaky Cauldron site is maintained by a whole staff of Harry heads and it is the place to go for all things Harry including discussions of symbolism, trivia, the latest JK Rowling news and interviews, and even a newsletter The Owl Post.

If that isn't enough Harry Potter for you, check out the Fan Links and immerse yourself in the world of Harry Potter. In the meantime, I plan to reread the Order of the Phoenix and be ready for the movie's debut.

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• Harry Potter on AbeBooks
• Harry Potter on Amazon
• Harry Potter on Barnes and Noble

My garden, my home

Photo by Dawn Goldsmith

We are trying to grow a family, maintain a family. But hundreds of miles separate my husband and I from our sons.

Missing my babies, my now grown sons, hits me suddenly and I look for something familiar. Something I can hold on to. Something that brings me close to them, reminds me of the places we called home when they were babies, and boys and still sticking their heads in the refrigerator looking for a snack, or dropping their wet towels on the bathroom floor or sitting at the kitchen table wanting to talk with their mom.

No, they did not spend time with me working in the garden. They avoided that as strenuously as they avoided eating many of the veggies we grew. But the garden itself is a familiar place.

The green onions in my Florida garden look like the ones we grew when we lived in Ohio or Illinois. The green peppers, tomatoes, green beans -- they stand in lovely rows as they did in each garden we planted through the years regardless of geography.

And looking at those plants, smelling their individual scents, touching their leaves and fruit -- I am transported to wherever my boys reside at whatever stage they were at. At whatever stage I am missing them the most at that particular moment.

I miss my babies. My men. My family. I need something that will give me hope that someday we can all be together, reconnected. Sharing memories and making some new ones.

The tomatoes are getting big. The beans are blooming. The cucumber plants have baby pickles. And all of this growth and change and ripening gives me hope. This moment shall pass and good things, good times, family times lie ahead, if I am just patient and continue to nurture what is growing right now.

I can't take my eyes off my garden, even when tears blur the image and my heart longs for my children. The tomatoes are getting big, the beans are blooming, baby pickles grow on the cucumber plants and someday soon my sons and I will hold each other close. Someday soon.

The tomatoes are growing big....

Regain the wonder

Five days a week, I work in a library shelving books. It is the perfect job for observing people's behavior. One constant source of entertainment is the kids.

Most of them are naturally fearless and curious and ready to try anything. I've plucked two-year-olds from the upper shelves where they have climbed while their parents' backs were turned. They delve without hesitation into fantasy and think nothing extraordinary about dogs talking and cats wearing hats. They soak up new experiences like sponges and are constantly hungry to learn and do and try.

Nothing is beyond their realm of possibility. The books written for children draw upon that "what if" and "it could happen" and "why not" way of thinking.

When did we outgrow the wonder of this world? When did we lose that sense of adventure, that curiosity about everything around us? When did we learn to resist change rather than embrace it?

Steven Pressfield wrote in his book The War of Art that "Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance."

For me as a writer, one of the most difficult aspects of my work is to write. The physical act of putting butt in the seat, hands on the keyboard and mind to the task. Instead I will surf the Internet, answer emails, do the laundry....but I resist doing what will give me the most pleasure and yes, the most pain.

I have a couple of successful ways to overcome that resistance -- at least toward writing.

1. Give myself permission to write whatever I want for 20 minutes. Timed writings. I put my fingers on the keys, close my eyes and just start typing whatever comes into my head. I don't stop typing for that time period. I don't correct, I don't edit, I don't censor. Its freedom and ultimately freeing. And the best part, many times I have the nugget for an article or an essay hidden among the jibberish. I'm always amazed at where free thought takes me.

2. When all else fails and resistance has me by the throat. I turn to the children's department at the library and read. I usually begin with Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type by Doreen Cronin. A Dr. Seuss book frees my fearful spirit, as does anything by Shel Silverstein.

Recently while assisting the librarian with children's story time, she read my new favorite: Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields. Anyone who can rhyme those multi-syllabic names and describe those mighty lizard beasts dancing has my respect. And gratitude.

Because once I've forgotten about responsibilities and reality and immersed myself in the world of cows that type and dinosaurs that dance -- there's nothing stopping my creative.

Isaac Newton may have been right about "an object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by another force." But I bet he didn't think of kid's literature as a 'force' to start the creativity ball rolling.

Next time you resist doing what you know you really need to do, want to do -- check out a kid's book. It is liberating.

Oh, and while you're at the library -- thank a librarian. They love it.