Book review: The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma (Adult non-fiction)

When Alice Ozma was nine, her dad (a school librarian) made her a promise to read to her every night for 100 nights. That 100 turned into 1000, which turned into 3218 nights of consecutive reading. The experience affected Alice so deeply that she wrote this book about "The Streak" and vowed to defend reading and books. The Reading Promise is more than just a book about literacy, or about one girl's love and admiration for her father. It's about the power of the written and spoken word, about parenting, about how taking the time to read together can change someone's life in ways that you can't always anticipate.

Alice has a wonderful website as well, http://makeareadingpromise.com/ and encourages others to make reading promises to their children. She also writes a blog. The print version of The Reading Promise includes a partial list of the books Alice and her father read together. Many of them are classics, and these titles are a good starting place for parents. I would also be happy suggesting books, especially for younger children.

As a librarian and a new mother, I appreciate this book on several levels. I strive to entertain, engage and inspire kids and teens to continue reading, to use the library, to write and read as many books as they can. My mother read to me as a child, and while we didn't have a streak like Alice, I did cherish the time with her. Listening to a book uses a different part of the imagination than reading a book yourself. Additionally, in our current hectic world, its a good way for parents and children to slow down, even for ten minutes a day, and bond over a book. It opens up channels of communication, it builds trust and consistency, and it fosters a love of reading that will hopefully last a lifetime. I think the popularity of audio books is a good indicator of how adults still crave and value the experience of listening to someone else read to them.

This book is located in our adult nonfiction section at 028 Osma. I highly recommend it. Find it and other gems in our catalog at www.wcplibrary.org.

(Thanks, Jen, for suggesting this book to me!)