This is about books. It's also about
parenting, teaching and a bunch of other things which will not be
discussed, either primarily or at all.
I know when my love-affair with books
began. I have vivid memories of my father OB'M coming home on a
Friday afternoon, with his ubiquitous “lawyer bag” (that's what I
called it) in hand. He would put it down in the foyer, and tell me to
open it up, as there was something in the bag for me. Whenever this
happened, I knew it meant one thing. My father, who loved to read,
had stopped off at The Strand, one of his favorite used-bookstores.
While there, he had not only picked out a bunch of crime detective
novels, or books about some fascinating episode in US history, he had
also picked out something for me. As a young child, it also meant
that after the family finished Shabbos dinner that night, we would
lay on the floor in the living room, as he read to me. The first book
I remember him reading to me, was Roald Dahl's “Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory”. There would be other books by Dahl, all of
which I would love, a love I continue to feel, despite learning later
on that he was a virulent anti-Semite. There were also many other
authors and topics. As I got older, I'd read the book by myself, but
I never stopped feeling like the excited young child, each time the
Friday afternoon scene was repeated.
I recall, that when my sister applied
to Yale (she was accepted), one of the essay questions was “Describe
the last book you read”. I remember thinking that any student who
chose that essay would almost certainly figure out the last book they
should have read. I, somewhat
pretentiously, decided, that from that moment on, I would only read
books which I would be willing to write about on an essay like that
(sports book were the one exception, although even there, I tend to
favor serious writing). Since that time, I've done a pretty good job
of sticking to that decision. I read mostly non-fiction, particularly
memoirs, biographies and history, as well as the classics. I never
developed a taste for crime novels, despite my father's love for
them. More importantly, he never tried to push them on me. That's
another one of his lessons that I failed to learn.
My
wife and I love to read. We read to our children starting when they
are young, and buy them books or take them to the library, whenever
possible. All of our children who are old enough to read, are
readers, with a few being serious bookworms. I take a lot of pleasure
in watching them develop this love of reading. Still, the fact that
they enjoy reading books which are fun rather than serious, has been
a somewhat tough pill to swallow. As they've grown older, I've tried
to push my snobbish, high-brow tastes on them, with little or no
success. This past Friday night, this topic came up at the Shabbos
table, and one of our guests said his father had done the same thing
to him and his siblings, who are all older than my children, when
they were young. He also pointed out, that not a single one of them
developed a taste for the classics. When I heard those words, it was
like a punch to the gut.
Whether
we are teachers or parents (or, as in my case, both), our job is not
to create clones of ourselves. Giving children wings and the ability
to fly is one thing. Choosing the destination where they must go is
entirely something else.
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