Cozy Evening of Reading

When Anu excitedly handed me the flyer from school and piped “Mama, can we go?” I thought it was another one of those summer camp and karate flyers. I was about to toss it as garbage, when I saw that it was an invitation for parents and kids to participate in a reading session at school in the evening. It went on to add that you could come dressed in PJs and carry your favorite doll, a throw or a pillow with you if you pleased.

I believe you cannot teach the joy of reading to anyone. You are either born with it or not. I am quite amazed though at the Americans. They always carry a book with them. At airports, doctors’ offices, bus stops, corridors or parks, you will always find them turning pages.
Wait = Read. Both Anu and Ankita are the typical Indians that would rather watch TV or the computer than read at leisure.

I got home from work, we had dinner and Anu wore her pajamas and we drove to school. It was dark and cold outside. I was lucky to get a good parking spot as I saw that the car ports were filling up very quickly. As we entered the cafeteria, I spotted volunteers carrying boxes and boxes of old used books (that the kids had donated during the past week) and arranging them on long cafeteria tables all along the walls. It was a very attractive sight. All the kids and many parents were dressed in night clothes and huge night slippers. Some carried pillows and quilts and teddy bears and rag dolls. The kids were running around the room from table to table taking a look at the books. They were picking up some of their favorites and pleading with their parents to buy them for 25 cents each. Parents were obliging and the kids were whizzing past to the counter where a teacher was collecting this money as a fund raiser for the school. I was amazed and dumb founded. For a while I simply sat down on a bench and devoured the sight. Such excitement for reading!

As the clock said 6.45pm, there was an announcement that reading sessions were beginning for different age groups in the media center, the 1^st grade pod, the 5^th grade pod, etc. You were free to choose your session. One and only rule: each session is for 15 mins. Please do not walk away when a session is on. Wait until the session is done.

Anu, Shuma and I chose the media center. Mrs Sitake was waiting for the children to come in. I had never seen her before. She was in her 60s perhaps, with huge pink carpet slippers and a red robe wound around her. As the kids settled down with their pillows, she took a book and began to read. She read the name of the book, the name of the author and the name of the illustrator. It was a story about an old woman who ate a hat, a cat, a bat, a snow flake, a scare crow, a jam bottle and many other things. Then the old woman had hiccups and she brought out all that she had eaten. The kids were laughing and repeating with Mrs Sitake “and then she ate a hat…..” . Mrs Sitake would read a bit and ask them questions and they would answer. Sometimes she sat on a rocking chair and read and sometimes she stood up and acted out the lines. I was glued to my chair taking in the whole scene thinking of my afternoon sessions as an 8 year old, reading oriya poems from “Sishulekha” or having my mother read oriya folk tales to me on bed. I grabbed my camera and took some pictures of the kids. This is paradise I thought. It was warm and snug indoors while the cold winds blew outside, the kids were in their pajamas, some sucking their thumbs, some lying down on their pillows, some hiding under their cozy quilts, some on their mother’s laps. Ah…what a pretty sight of security. Why would anyone want to shatter this vision with wars and bombs I thought?

At the end of the session with Mrs. Sitake, we moved on to Mr. Monroe’s class. He was sitting on a small desk with his legs crossed over. The kids and parents sat on the floor. He was reading an Anansi book. Though I had read about Anansi the spider with Anu before, I did not know that Anansi was an important character from West African folklore. He was a trickster and a culture hero working on behalf of his father to bring rain to stop fires etc. Mr. Monroe had cardboard cut outs of the characters in the Anansi book and he handed them over to the children. Then he started to read, while the kids raised each character as he mentioned their names. It was yet another beautiful and assuring sight of a cultured society.

I would have come home after Mr. Monroe was done, but Anu wanted to go to her Kindergarten class and see what Ms Bonds and Ms Thompson were up to. Kids never tire of their old teachers I thought. Ms Bonds was dressed in red polka dot pajamas and had huge bear claws slippers. The children sat down before her on the carpet, more comfortable than any other place because they had spent all of last 2007 in her class. Ms Bonds read from “Cloudy with a Chance of Meat Balls”. It was a funny story of a place called Chewandswallow where it rained soup and juice, snowed mashed potatoes until the weather changed for the worse. The children’s imaginations went haywire and they asked all sort of questions to Ms Bonds. Unwearyingly she answered every question. Everyone was reluctant to leave when the announcement came up that the Cozy Evening of Reading progam was done for the night and every child that attended a session could pick up a free Homework Pass as they walked out of school. This was their prize for listening.

Anu picked up her HW pass and we walked out to the cold parking lot. I didn’t know how the kids felt, but I was warm inside. School was a great place to be. May be I was wrong.
May be you CAN teach them the joy of reading.