It was almost midnight.
My EC turned to me and said,”Would you check on FOML5? I have a feeling he might still be up.”
I lumber down the hall towards his bedroom – all is dark and quiet. But there is a faint glow coming from under his door. Using my highly developed ninja skills, I silently open the door and slip inside. He doesn’t see me. He is lying on his bed, holding a book in one hand, and a flashlight in the other.
“How’s the book?” I say.
He jumps, gathers himself and immediately begins to apologize.
I put on my “dad face” and say things like, “You know what time it is, right?” and “We have a busy day tomorrow,” etc.
I do it all with a mild seriousness. Give him a kiss and help him get to bed.
“Dad?”
“What?”
“Please don’t tell Mom.”
“She’s the one who sent me in here.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s your mom and she knows everything. Besides, I don’t keep secrets from Mom – you know that. Don’t worry – she’s not going to be mad.”
I told him goodnight, again, and walked back to my bedroom with a huge grin on my face. My EC asked me what happened, I told her that she was right, and that I caught him reading with a flashlight – and that it was awesome.
We both laughed and took credit, because both of us had surely been caught many times doing the same thing. We love books. We love to read.
Our family is a family of readers. Our eldest actually teaches English, and we couldn’t be more proud. Our youngest gets so involved in his books that we have to tell him to stop and go do something else.
We consider it a tremendous blessing.
Life likes people who read. People who read get better grades, make more money, have less stress, have better memories, memory skills, vocabularies, concentration – and they are just plain smarter, etc. (If you don’t want to take my word for it, go ahead and Google it.)
But I believe there is a more important reason to read:
Reading is the most important “input” into our minds for learning the Gospel. It is true that the Holy Ghost is charged with testifying of all truth, (Moroni 10:5) but we need to get those ideas into our minds before the Spirit can testify. And reading has always been the most suggested method – even in today’s era of YouTube and LDS.org.
We learn the truth of the Book of Mormon by reading and studying the Book of Mormon. Sure, you can listen to it on CD, but that is not the same as studying. You can’t cross-reference, you can’t read footnotes, etc.
We listen to General Conference talks from living prophets, but we also can read and study them – and really dig in – online and in the Ensign.
There is a reason God has his Prophets write things down. So we can have them to read.
I don’t even want to guess how many scriptures, talks or lessons remind us to “read the scriptures.” Most of them?
I know people who hate to read, or have kids who hate to read. I personally don’t understand what that would be like. I think it is rather tragic, but then I love it, and feel like I don’t read enough.
The Lord admonished us to “seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom.” (D&C 88:118.)
OK by me. But I’m old enough I don’t need the flashlight.
We had a similar experience with one of our sons: he was so engrossed in a book while waiting for his bus number to be called after school that he missed the announcement (and consequently, his bus). How do you get mad at a kid for missing his bus because he was reading?!?
It is getting hard to mesh schedules with the young men still at home, but we have enjoyed “Reading Club”. One of us (usually me) reads out loud to the others. Usually even anyone who said they weren’t interested gets sucked in. Sometimes we have to hunt down the Reading Club book because someone “cheated,” tooke the book, and read ahead on their own. As long as they keep their mouth shut!
We have read a wide variety of books. Believe it or not, an early Reading Club began when toddler Benjamin snuggled with me while his oldest brother, David, was on his mission and I was reading “Jesus the Christ” by Talmadge in a form of solidarity with him. Now Benjamin is on his mission and he still remembers that Reading Club and some of the messages from “Jesus the Christ”.
I always loved reading too and it came with minimal effort on my part. Fast forward and we’re raising a smart as a whip dyslexic child. COMPLETELY foreign territory! Our only saving grace was a wise and fabulous 1st grade teacher, monumental effort at home (w/ guidance from a reading specialist friend), and his love of a good story…which he definitely prefers to listen to, but will claw through on his own too. We barely keep him at grade level, but he keeps at it. Someday I hope it becomes easier for him so he can actually enjoy it. It’s pretty cute seeing our struggling reader with amazing recall and comprehension and our avid reader with weak comprehension work together on figuring out written texts. #2 reads it out loud not really knowing what he’s saying, #1 (dyslexic) listens explains it to number #2 and on they continue. Since having the dyslexic claw through one verse in the scriptures per night he’s improved a TON. Blessing? I think so…
I was a poor reader as a kid. I was very clever so I did very well in school and kind of covered up my deficiency until I couldn’t stand it in my senior year. I tried to get help, but didn’t get much then. When i got to college and fell hopelessly behind in my first weeks (staying up til 2 to finish mandatory reading each night), I tried again getting help and this time it worked. I’m an avid reader (was an English major at the Y) today. My girls have all been better readers than my boys as youngsters.
We catch our 8 year old reading “past bedtime” almost every night. Hard to be upset when it’s usually one of the scripture reader books…now if I could just help him realize that writing is important too…
Any book ideas to capture an eight year old boy reluctant reader? He likes classic stories and real animal fact books. With the animal books he usually just looks throughbthem and draws pictures from them.
Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne. It’s an entire series with several about animals with real facts in them.
Our oldest son has dyslexia and he wouldn’t read anything if he could help it, until I found him just the right books that captured his interest at age 13. Now he’s 27 and read big fat books like all of his siblings. Sometimes people just need to find the right books to see the beauty in reading.
So glad you mentioned this. There are books that are actually targeted to ‘reluctant readers.”
Melissa, you didn’t necessarily do *anything* wrong. Four of my five came out of the womb, reading. The fifth and last was waiting for Harry Potter. And she’s the only one who is not a brilliant speller. I’m not sure if that’s the chicken or the egg.
I’m a reader. Read three volumes of “Les Miserables” when I was ten. Read the non-racy bits of “Tom Jones” to my firstborn while nursing her.
The first time that Beloved came to pick me up, he noticed the huge bookcase filled with cookbooks. “But Lynn, you don’t *cook*.” “Yes, but I have a rich fantasy life.”
Always reading several books at a time here–including the scriptures of course:-). So much to learn. It’s such a big beautiful world when I read. Thanks so much for the blog post. Took me back to my younger days, flashlight in hand, under the blanket–summertime in the Salt Lake valley.
Reading! I love Reading! *said in my best Buddy the Elf voice*
Yes and yes.
I love reading. That includes your posts. My parents and grandparents were all readers. They all had sharp and alert minds until their passing. Thanks again today, as always.
I so envy you. 4 out of my 4 do not enjoy reading. I love it and it pains mysoul that they don’t. I don’t know what I did wrong. You are lucky to have readers.