Books, Family, Learning, Writing

She Reads…They Read…

She Reads…. Today’s post is an (almost) unedited version of something I wrote a while ago. I had initially planned to spruce it up a bit but then as I talked to my mom and my brother while they wished me a happy birthday, I decided to just post it as is. And yes, it is my birthday as I cruise along the 40s!

She Reads…They Read…

Flashback to the late 1970s

A tiny tot listening, rapt in attention (well, maybe a hyberbole!) to his older sister narrating a story, complete with hand movements and voices. She seems to be telling a story he knows, a favorite of his… but he suddenly looks confused. What? This was not how the story went before..

Unbeknownst to the poor little tot, big sister has a bag full of variants for her little brother each time she tells him the tale.. After all it is a made-up story 🙂

Fast forward a year or so

a little girl lost in a book; she reads, and reads, and reads… while her parents look on with a mix of love, pride, and some frustration too (when she is thus lost, she is truly lost to the rest of the world).

Little do those parents know that their little girl is not just lost in a book; she is lost in wonder, in places far beyond where they are, in whole new worlds indeed, lost in imagination – the most wonderful place to lose oneself in!

As she reads, she also creates. As she reads, she learns. As she reads, she grows – more creative, more imaginative, more – her! As she reads all those Blytons, that Misha magazine from far off Russia, those Tinkles and ACKs (thank you Uncle Pai), those Indrajals and Targets and Chandamamas and Champaks, and so much more..

Her little brother still loves listening to her stories – now she reads some, makes up others. He is going to start reading for himself soon; and he does. Soon, the parents found themselves watching both their lil ones read, and read, and read….

10 Years (or so) Later

Let us push the clock a few more years into the future, about a decade or a little more: She still does not understand what the Mills and Boons craze is all about.

Give her a Jane Austen, a Hardy, the Canterville ghost, Jules Vernes, even those comics she loved as a kid, any obscure novel indeed, and she is happy.

Give her those magazines her dad and mom and their friends have started a circulating library for (and they are all so different yet wonderful – India Today, Women’s Era, …) and she is pleased. After all, it is her job to ensure that they keep circulating among the members. That magazine stayed too long at xyz uncle’s house. It is her job to move it to the next household so everyone can get a chance to read it before it gets too old.

She Reads
A Page Out of History – From That Circulating Library .. ignore the scribblings on that page 🙂

A Couple Years Later

she finally finds herself lost in a M&B (Mills and Boons, for those wondering!). Thank you aunty for your endless supplies of those books. But M&Bs are not all that she reads.

Alistair McLean, Nevil Shute, Sidney Sheldon, and many others – all war with each other for her time. But no worries, Austen and Hardy and the rest of the classics still share equal time and place in her schedule and her shelf.. 

Fast forward to now

cries of mom remain unanswered. Don’t they know it is reading time for mom now? Haven’t they learned by now? They are old enough to get what they want by themselves.. And they need to learn to fend for themselves by now, right? So she continues reading.

..and she reads, and reads:)

Her kids are older but she still loves to read the books she read for them when they were little – all those #kidlit books; but she also reads those books they are reading now.. #middle-grade #teenreads #YA .

…and she reads……

(and she has learned to use hashtags much to the annoyance of her kids)

She has her own IG twitter Pinterest and FB accounts. “Mom! you CAN’T be my IG friend… no way!” But she is glad they let her take a peek into their accounts and friend her on FB..

And she is DOUBLY, TRIPLY, TERRIBLY glad that they read too…

and they all read, and read.. 

In Case….

But you might wonder, what did happen to that little maker of tales? The one who told all those stories to her brother? She still is in there, shows herself every once in a while.

Like, when her little ones were little – she made up stories for them using characters and people they knew – like Dora the Explorer and their neighbor’s cat.

She mashed up old familiars into new ones and when they told the tale to others, people wondered, confused. This is not the tale we heard or read.. But little did those people know, these little ones had a mishmasher of tales – their mom – as their tale-teller.. 

And then the little ones grew, and they were reading their own tales, lost in their own worlds of wonder; and that teller of tales retreated some.

But I am hoping she is still in there, and can soon tell those tales to others… to put those words on paper. And she hopes that little ones (and older ones too) somewhere will read them and be lost in a world of wonder – her words, their worlds ….

and they will all read…

THE (WELL, NOT THE END)….

And so my bookish summer continues as she reads…

So begins Day 2 of my bookish summer.. as I turn a year older, and to state the cliched statement, wiser as well hopefully…Grayer definitely!

To my fellow UBCers and to my blogger friends all around the world, thank you for your support always!

Here are my Bookish Summer posts:

A Bookish Summer Begins

22 thoughts on “She Reads…They Read…

  1. Happy Birthday, whenever I have nothing to read, I get fidgety. I spent some time in jail and the only thing that kept me sane is books. Since then I never go ANYWHERE without a paperback book in my pocket.

  2. This post reminds me of those days I was hooked to reading novels. It also reminds me of how gratifying to see my children read when they were young and up till now, especially my son. It’s so funny how I picture him so lost, too, while reading, when I came to that part of this post where you were so lost in reading.

    Happy birthday, and happy reading, too!

  3. It’s interesting to see our interests and tastes change over the years. I never thought I would enjoy nonfiction, but here I am now as an adult and that is the majority of what I read!

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