Reading

Recently, I have found myself reading regularly (and using alliteration in descriptions of myself). I tend to go in and out where reading is concerned. I'll not read anything for months, too busy or too not wanting to, and then I'll find a book and by the time I've finished I find myself inspired to read something else. The chain lasts indefinitely-sometimes ending a day later, sometimes lasting years. I suppose this trend started back at Catoctin Elementary School in Leesburg, VA. Like every elementary school, we were constantly being pushed to read. Contests were held between classes for fabulous prizes.
These prizes were won with the process of flashy, construction paper-based gimmicks. For instance, for every book read you got a white paper snowball. When a book was finished, we wrote the title, author, and brief 1-2 sentence summary on a snowball. These snowballs were taped to the wall in an effort to be the first class in the school to build a construction
paper snowman.

I'd feverishly plow through three Berenstein Bears books a day. By the end of the week, I'd realize that Brother and Sister Bear always resolved their problems and learned a valuable lesson related to the title. So, I'd start plowing through eight or nine books a day by reading the title and then just writing in the summary section of the snowball: "Brother and Sister Bear learned not to cheat." "Brother and Sister Bear learned to not tell a lie." "Brother and Sister Bear learned to not be lazy all day."
Basically, I learned how to cheat, lie, and be lazy, by reading books about preventing those traits. I learned the same for Dr. Seuss, whose summaries went something like this: "Green Eggs and Ham was funny. I liked the rhyming." "The Cat in the Hat was funny. I liked the rhyming and the cat." "Horton Hears a Hoo was funny. I liked the rhyming and how Horton heard the Hoo."

Inevitably, all this hard work and discovery would end in the predictable pizza party for the winners. The pizza was always the same cheese pizza that we ate every other day in the cafeteria, but somehow, this never fazed us from feverish and competitive reading. Month after month-new construction paper gimmicks, same fabulous prize. It's easy to trick kids into anything I suppose. I guess that's why federal law requires you to be older than 12 before running for government office. And somehow, even after all these cheap elementary hi-jinks to avoid reading, I still enjoy a good book today. Go figure.