Summer Reading, the Avid Reader & Kids Books

Did a relative or friend who likes to read recently give your child a new book as a gift?   Are you sure?    What I mean is, are you sure about the “new book” designation for the gift?

Personal experience and the hushed confessions of  friends (and a few strangers) have led me to believe that the people who give books as gifts are avid readers, and that these readers seldom give away a book unless they have first read it themselves. When avid readers are together, we admit our faults and tell the truth: we always read a book before we give it as a gift.

This isn’t the kind of revelation that Oprah’s T.V. producers are shopping for, so I will use this venue to confess:  I am an Avid Reader.  And so are some of my relatives and friends.

We admit it, here on this post: that book we gave you last Christmas?  We read it first. We aren’t proud of it, but we aren’t going to go through a 12-step program or join a support group either.

Don’t judge us too harshly. Surely it counts for something that we wanted  your child to have a special gift.  We went to some trouble and bought books for kids when it would have been easier to give them a birthday card with some money inside.

Remember that we bought the book  for your child with the best of intentions.  Perhaps we even wanted to benefit children’s literacy.

We never planned on reading it before your child did.  We struggled and reasoned with ourselves about it. But, alas–we struggled in vain.

Avid readers read books. Whether they purchase books as gifts for your child or for a seriously ill friend, they will postpone delivery of that gift until they have read the book for themselves.  This may seem heartless. However, it is a fact of nature.  The nature of the Avid Reader.

This is a plea for understanding and compassion.  My name is Linda, and I am an Avid Reader.

And so are some of my relatives and friends. Perfectly nice people, with normal human faults and a few peculiarities.

Avid readers read books whether the book belongs to them or they purchase books as a gift for kids, your kids.

You probably wonder: If  they were nice enough to take the trouble to buy a book as a gift, why give into temptation and read it first, for themselves?  Why this selfishness?  After all, you wouldn’t buy a friend a lovely new sweater, wear it once, have it cleaned, and then wrap it and give it to her for her birthday, would you?

Probably not.

But what if it was the softest shade of green and it made the blue of your eyes look lovely, and it fit you better than it will her?  What if you are going someplace special, and you have spent so much money on this gift that you can’t afford anything new for yourself?  You begin to see the dichotomy. You see that split in the personality between generosity and selfishness.

The tempting voice says, “you are not going to keep the sweater, you are just going to borrow it. This is not selfish. It’s OK. You will wear it for a short while, and then you will give this beautiful sweater to your friend.”

Now, would you wear the sweater?  You would not. And not just because you know that the voice of temptation will quickly turn into a Snickering Fate, who will make sure that you meet your friend while you are wearing her new sweater. Or you are sure that she would detect the cleaning fumes and suspect the sweater was  “previously owned”.

In theory, the same rules apply to books as to clothes. You buy new books or new sweaters to give as gifts.

You leave the book, just as you would the sweater, alone until you  wrap it.  This is all reasonable and proper.  But Avid Readers aren’t reasonable and proper when it comes to books.  When it comes to books our soft hearts turn to granite, and our generous nature becomes avarice.

Avid Readers  are compulsive about reading. They are obsessed with reading.  They are addicted to reading.

On one hand, this is a person with a strong interest and great enjoyment of reading, not a person who is fighting for their soul while living a life of quiet desperation. On the other hand, this is a person who won’t let go of the gift until he has had his satisfaction from it. Let’s explore the situation as it unfolds.

Your friend, A. R., has just purchased a children’s novel for your child’s ninth birthday.

The book  is on A.R’s desk and is ready for the birthday wrap.

A.R. stops to admire the cover and flips back to some of the pages of the book that he read as he made his way  through the assorted children’s fiction in the book store.

Then a word, or a phrase, something on the page, catches his eye. He leans over the desk to read a bit further. After a few minutes he sits down,  just to finish the page he is reading. He nods to himself and then chuckles quietly over the funny bits.

“This is interesting,” he mumbles.

Because no matter what the Avid Reader’s taste in books, or whatever genre the avid reader favors,  he or she will find something interesting or amusing in a new book, whether the book is a  mystery or the newest children’s novel.

Avid Reader will be amused or interested in what he reads, and will be compelled to keep reading, simply because he is holding a book.  It is an equation to him: New Book + Avid Reader + Chair = another book added to his summer reading list. You mustn’t be too hard on him.

Avid readers love books; they are the people who enter a book store with a smile of anticipation on their face.  They have entered a magic place, a place of delight and great adventure.  The books on sale there are precious to these readers.  To them, a book is more than a book, they are  possessions of high value.

And, I say, for the moment, let’s forget all of this Save The Whales business, and work on Saving the Avid Readers; we need them as surely as we need whales, and both are a species that is worth saving.

And to authors writing: Avid Reader is not just a reader, he is a lover of literature. We value him because he treasures our writing in the same way we do.

Book publishers, whether bricks and mortar or online book stores, adore Avid Readers. And in these uncertain days of book publishing, this brave new world of e-books and the Kindle,  they have begun to court, even stalk him, as a rare species that must be preserved in the interest of their own survival.

As the author of Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes, one of those books for kids,  I hope an Avid Reader is reading my book at this very moment.

“Read on, Avid Reader,” I whisper.  “Please love my book, and when you finally pass on this slightly used  children’s novel, this tale of King Arthur, Merlin, and Arthur the Brave, please put it into the hands of a child who will one day be an Avid Reader just like you.”