May 26, 2002
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Summer Sunrise
Memorial Weekend officially begins the summer season. Oh, I know that the calendar shows summer solstice almost a month away, and that the Fall Equinox doesn't happen until late September, but around here summer goes from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Remember those essays we all used to dread? "What I did on my summer vacation?" Do teachers still asign those in these days of educational enlightenment? When I was a child summer days were magical. We spent a lot of time at the lake, camping and waterskiing. I rode my bike all over town. And at least once a week, I paid a visit to the coolest place in town - the library. I don't know what it was about the librarians in my hometown, but they kept the interior atmosphere at a stable 55 degrees all through the summer. To open the door was to be blown inside as the summer heat rushed into that cool vacuum.
The Hot Spring County library sponsored a summer reading program. Kids were supposed to have their parents make a list of the books that we read and turn it in at the end of the summer. Whoever read the most books got some kind of recognition or another. The first summer that I knew about this program I eagerly signed up. I read my books and my Mom initialed beside the titles on my list. Three or four pages of neatly lettered entries by the end of the summer.
I turned in my papers with my books. And waited to see how my list compared to the other kids in the program. When the winners names were posted, mine wasn't among them. But when I looked at the numbers of books these other kids had read, none of them had turned in even half so many as I had. I didn't understand, so I asked my Mom to find out what had happened. Was my paper lost?
It turned out that the librarians had disqualified me because they thought that there was no way I had actually read all those books. Either my Mom had read them to me, or I had just gone through the stacks choosing titles at random so I'd have something to add to my list. That was the only year I officially participated in the summer reading program.
Several weeks ago I asked for suggestions from you friends in compiling my summer reading list. I received many more suggestions than even I could incorporate into one summer. Some of the books you recommended I've already read, and some of them I've put on my wish list for next Fall. The finished list is posted to the left. Each Thursday between now and Labor Day, I'll post an entry on the book of the week in my review section. I hope that there will be something on the list that you are planning to (or have) read for yourself and you'll participate by commenting on the review. I believe the list reflects the diversity and depth of this Xanga circle and I'm excited about this summer's reading.
I've jumped the gun today by opening the discussion on the first book, The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. That's because the thickest book of the summer is scheduled for next week.
Comments (18)
You know, you would have thought the librarians would have at least called your Mom before disqualifying you! How sad for you!
Gee.. that wasn't fair at all for you to be disqualified! I hope your mom put up a fuss over it. I know I would have! Hmmmm.....
I used to hate those assignments once we got back to school.. what did you do on your summer vacation. We lived in the sticks and we didn't do all that much.
I never really thought about it before but our local library was always refreshingly air conditioned all summer long too...what a relief after riding a bike around in 90+ degree heat!
hehehehehe ...... I really did go through the shelves and write down random titles.
Heheheh - We never did much on Summer vacations so I guess I gave my teachers a break on that one.. made it all up
Great reading list you have going!! I just finished a book on Rose Red - A diary, and am now doing the "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" and am loving it so far 
Happy Day to you!! 
teachers really do ask for those types of essays at the first of the year--and not one of them check for content, lol. it's all an exercise to check out where students stand, but you're right, more creative measures could be taken. I will try my best to get that Jeckyll book read by the deadline!
They disqualified you? That STINKS!!!
We just got all the lists together from homeschooling links and friends of all the libraries within 35 miles of here and their summer reading programs and story hours. Now to sort through them to make our plans....
That's a sad story! Well, a least you got the real reward/benefit from all that reading.
Christy - I expect I'll be sneaking "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" in somewhere this summer. I know I'll be in line for the movie and I'd hate to show up before I've finished the book.
God Bless - Dale
tsk. but you still won, because you READ.
- the Bone people from your list is one of my favourite books. Anne McCaffery I found not nearly as good as I expected. Good luck with the list!
Wow Loopy - you say a book by a kiwi author is one of your favourites!!! Goodluck with 'the bone people' ... I tried it once when I was about 15 - I couldn't get into it.
I'm a New Zealander (as is the author) so I really should try it again... esp now that I'm not living in NZ.
Jekyll and Hyde was actually based around the effects of mescaline - they didn't know too much about it back then. (That's what I heard, anyway.)
My sister - referring to my own blog - has a memory that goes back to 6 months old...when she remembers watching The Queen's Coronation on the televsion with my mother - that was, of course, 1952.
I, personally, remember hearing my father's voice saying: "Why did we have to bring another baby into this world...we have no room for any more!" I was pre-verbal then...so I don't know how I managed to decipher what was going on. I guess that babies just sense negativity - or friction - and later on, when they become verbal, they piece together certain events of their past. (Babies know if they are not wanted, even if they cannot yet talk.) That is what I believe, anyway.
One of my earliest memories, is when I was still in my highchair...I seen to remember that it was a blue chair - passed down from my brother. I was wearing a bib...and my mother was feeding me a soft-boiled egg with "soldiers". (I was always spilling the egg down the front of my bib.)
I can never remember the setting for these early memories - I can remember the event, but the surrounding is always some place extremely recent. (I don't know why.) I think, maybe, that there is a load of trauma back there...and that is the only way that I can deal with the past - by blocking it out. (I think that that is how we all survive...but we also pay the price of losing a lot of memory with the feelings that we are scared of.
Of all your list, I've only read The Bone People, but I know it's excellent. Sad really, for someone who's been to graduate school for literature, how much I haven't read.
Shhh, don't tell, but I think you won the real prize.
I'm glad that didn't stifle your appetite for reading!
I only hope to have more words for you to feast upon one day...
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