by Tracy Wolff
One of my favorite things about being a mom is the time I spent reading to my boys as they were growing up. They’re older now (the youngest is nineteen) but the hours upon hours I spent tucked up in bed with them sharing some of my favorite books, and some of theirs, is time I will cherish for the rest of my life.
My oldest was a natural born reader. From the time he could sit up, he was grabbing onto the books I read to him, trying to turn the pages, baby talking to me about the characters in the brightly colored pages. Sharing books with him was, and remains, an absolute joy (except for the day Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins came out. I made the mistake of buying only one copy and he swooped in and stole it minutes after I sat down on the couch to read it. As I chased after him, he called over his shoulder that he was a faster reader than me—which is totally true—and that I should let him have it. What ensued was a tussle only two book lovers could engage in. He won and I had to wait one excruciatingly long day before I could read it). Thinking about that day is still one of my favorite memories and never fails to bring a smile to my lips.
From the beginning, unfortunately, my younger two boys weren’t nearly as enthusiastic about reading as my oldest. Oh, they too loved story time curled up in their beds as we read tales of dragons and fairies and dinosaurs, but unlike my oldest, they rarely, if ever, reached for books outside of story time, no matter how many trips to the bookstore we took trying to entice them. As they neared school age, and beyond, we found out they were dyslexic and a new hunt started for me—to find books they could enjoy and engage with.
My search led me from companies that wrote books specifically for kids with dyslexia to graphic novels to audio books and beyond. But reading continued to be a struggle for my second son until he found comic books when he was in fourth grade, while my youngest didn’t really embrace reading until recently, when he started listening to audiobooks to help him read the assigned novels in high school. The amount of joy, and gratitude I feel as a mother, a writer, and an English professor—at the knowledge that, after all these years, they too have found their mediums in the storytelling world—is indescribable. As is my youngest son’s enthusiasm when he shares tidbits from whatever book he is listening to at the moment. Keeping him in audio book credits is becoming a full-time job, but one we relish).
As I look back on all those evening story times and all the books we read together through the years, I can’t help thinking about a few of the ones that really engaged them and that have, in many ways, helped shape them into the young men they are today.
- The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan: This first book in the Percy Jackson series is one that held my sons and me spellbound from the very first title of the very first chapter (“I Accidentally Vaporize my Pre-Algebra Teacher”). The voice is captivating, the story is filled with twists and turns, and the main character is one that all my boys related to. As the series continues, Percy’s struggle to do the right thing even in the face of impossible odds is one of the most powerful lessons my boys have ever learned.
- How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell: We are a proud family of nerds, gamers, and deep thinkers. The adventures of Hiccup in the first book, and throughout the series, had my boys and me laughing and gasping from one page to the next. But buried within all of Hiccup’s escapades is the lesson that it’s okay to be different, okay to forge your own path, and more than okay to be a nerdy kid who prefers drawing spaceships to playing football.
- The False Prince by Jennifer A Nielsen: This book, and the series that follows, deals with truth and deception, identity and hiding, and, finally, standing up for your rights in a world that doesn’t think you deserve any. Wrapped in a tale of a prince who isn’t a prince and a poor kid who isn’t really a poor kid, this series captivated my boys right from the beginning with themes and lessons that have only grown more important to the world we live in today.
- Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer: The first book, and the entire series, are a fabulous time. From the minute Artemis leaps onto the page with his plan to kidnap a fairy, we’re caught up in his adventures. But we’re also caught up in a fascinating discussion about greed, the abuse of power, and the true meaning of family in a world where so many people only look out for themselves. Not to mention the fact that Colfer flipped the script when she made the twelve-year-old protagonist the criminal mastermind of this series and had us all questioning the true and always changing faces of good and evil.
- The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger: I read this series with my younger two sons (it wasn’t out when my oldest was the right age for it) and we laughed and laughed as we read it. Filled with pictures and instructions on how to make origami Star Wars figures, as well as the powerful tales, traumas, and triumphs of a particular group of middle schoolers, my boys and I scaled the heights of excitement and the depths of despair with the main characters. We also spent hours talking about the books’ themes of the wisdom in unconventional advice, not sweating the small stuff, focusing on what’s really important to you and the power of individuality and diversity.
There are so many amazing things that came from reading nightly with my boys—a special time that was just for us and helped us grow closer, discussions that led to so many fascinating places and ideas, and a powerful way to exercise our imaginations, just to name a few. I love all of those things and many more, but what I cherish most from those days is looking at the young men my sons are today and seeing pieces of all those stories and all those characters inside of them. Percy’s strength of character, Hiccup’s ingenuity, Sage’s belief in himself in the face of adversity, Artemis’s eventual compassion and selflessness, and Tommy’s endless curiosity. When I see those traits shining through in their characters and the choices they make today, I’m reminded that the stories we read together didn’t just fill the evenings. They helped fill my boys—with kindness, with compassion, with courage, and with love. Knowing that makes the memories of those long-ago nights all the sweeter.
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