Really Reading

Tonight I am grateful for the ability to read. No, I don't just mean the fact that I can decipher words and comprehend a text. I'm talking about my ability to really read, to escape into a story (I'm done with textbooks for a few weeks), become part of the journey, and hang on for the ride. I'm grateful for my mother who read to me, for my wife who still reads aloud with me, and for my kids who let me read to and with them. No one is too old to be read aloud to. Just ask all my geeky writer friends.

I love the time I have to read aloud to my students--books that some of them would never dream of picking up, let alone making past page two. I read for them.

But now that my semester is done, I can read for me, and I've been enjoying it. I picked up Funny Business, the first installment of the Guys Read Library, edited by Jon Scieszka. I love short story collections, but today during silent reading, I was devouring David Lubar's "Kid Appeal," and I laughed out loud. Hard. Long. Enough to get stares from my 7th graders. One girl rolled her eyes, tilted her head, and looked at me. "Wha-at?" she snarled. I tried to explain how funny the book was (without disrupting the rest of the class), but all I got in return was an exasperated "unh" and a head shake, as if anyone could ever laugh at a bo-ok, Mr. Anson. She wasn't even trying to fake her way across the pages of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

So I am grateful that I am able to uncover such pleasures in reading. I do laugh aloud. I do cry. I do need to find out what happens next. I do stay up way past the time all the stupid little vampires return to their beds...doing what...reading: enjoying life experiences, sharing the joy of living with those who can tell it best.

P.S. Most of the other students are begging for me to read it to them tomorrow.