Greatest gift is to teach a child to read
Book Review
Book Crush: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Interest
By Nancy Pearl
Sasquatch Press
Paperback $16.95
By BILL DUNCAN
The greatest gift you can give a child is the encouragement to read. It is a lifetime gift and if Nancy Pearl has anything to do with it every parent, teacher and librarian will wrap that gift for every child.
Pearl, a retired Seattle librarian who is the author of "Book Lust," and its sequel, "More Book Lust," in which she talks books and more books. She also talks books on National Public Radio’s "Morning Edition" and teaches a class called Book Lust 101 at the University of Washington.
She has become the librarian for a whole nation through her cleverly written books about books. She knows the importance of reading and says "my happiest memories of a childhood…were escaping into books."
"Book Crush," was released on April 28 and as a result, Pearl said she is already getting e-mails from people who are suggesting titles for a second "Book Crush," book. "Perhaps I could call it something like, ‘Crushed Again,’" she quipped in an interview. "I find myself even more busy than I was when I was working," she said. She is taping a television show called "Book Lust with Nancy Pearl," and she continues to write Pearl’s Picks, a subscription service available to libraries.
In all this busyness, does she find time to read? "Of course I read,"
she said. "Keep in mind that includes a lifetime of doing very little else than reading." It shows in the way she summarizes books in her three contemporary books, including her latest one. "I was very fortunate to have a cadre of librarians, both at the public library and my elementary and high school libraries, who happily and caringly fed my reading needs."
Her mission in life is to provide children that same caring by sharing the joy of reading. "Although I included a few books for children and teens in my ‘Book Lust’ books, I thought it would be fun for me and useful for parents, teachers, librarians and other adults…to write a book devoted solely to great reads for kids and teens," she said.
She has organized the book in sections. Part I includes books for the youngest readers in which she devotes 80 pages to books that appeal to the youngest readers. Part II discusses books for middle-grade readers from ages 8-12. Part III is for teen readers ages 13-18.
Pearl wrote such interesting short reviews of the books, it makes you want to visit the children’s library and come away with an
armload of books, not only to share with children, but to while away a day or so reveling in stories, in my case particularly one called "Ugh! A Bug," by Mary Bono.
The book written in verse format, takes a child through an encounter with a creepy-crawly all written from the viewpoint of the bug. In one line, there is some practical advice:
"So next time you see a bug
don’t make a fuss
after all,
there’s more of them
than us."
Pearl put the Harry Potter phenomena in its true perspective when she wrote, "long before Harry, Ron, Hermione, Snape, et all, were even a gleam in (J.K. Rowling’s) eye, such writers as J.R.R. Tolkien, E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis and others were writing books that are still excellent choices for middle-grade readers."
As a Hospice volunteer, I was impressed with Pearl’s book suggestions for children and teenagers about death and dying, among them the classic, "Bridge to Terabithia," by Katherine Paterson who handles with great sensitivity the death of a friend. Pearl notes that the book, written in 1977, has "not lost any of its power to move readers."
Writing books is old hat to Pearl. She is the author of two library reference books, "Now Read This: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction, 1978-1998" and "Now Read This II: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction, 1990-2001" in which fiction is divided into four different groups, based on the appeal of the books.
Pearl says she finds that she writes best in the morning and "I leave my reading for the afternoons. I find writing to be incredibly difficult and requires from me a lot of self-discipline. It’s always easier for me to read a book than write about why I enjoyed it, and I somehow always dread finishing a book because I know that then I have to sit down and write something again."
While she is realistic, she does not believe the electronic media will be the death of books, at least not in her lifetime. "I think that at some time in the future there is a chance that the book as we know it, bound or sewn pages of paper, will disappear in favor of electronic media. I think that will be sad but not perhaps tragic. What’s always been most important to me is what lies in-between the covers of the book — and I believe with all my heart that people will always want and need stories in their lives. Books let us live infinite lives, we can be anyone, go anywhere, do anything and I believe that will always be around."
(Bill Duncan is editor of The Senior Times. He also writes a weekly column on the Thursday Opinion Page.)