Just like Cal did not understand his sister Lark’s fascination with books, my father did not understand how I could spend a whole day with my “nose in a book.”  A farmer, he would come in for lunch during the summer and demand that I get outside and do something.  I usually complied by taking my book outside and reading on the porch swing or on the hill in the yard under the walnut tree.  (Not exactly what he had in mind!)

I shared this story with my students after we read Henson’s That Book Woman together.  As I explained to them, my father certainly could read.  He was a college graduate.  But he didn’t LIKE to read, certainly not for entertainment.  And my (and my mother’s) love of books and reading was pure puzzlement.

My mom and I were both fans of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.  Beginning in fourth grade, I read the entire series 12 times during my school years.  A 1975 trip to South Dakota included, of course, a stop in DeSmet.  My father and brother were not as excited about the visit as mom and I, but we stopped!  In the year’s since my mother and I have visited almost all of the Little House sites together and separately.  It was during a trip to Wisconsin (and a visit to Little House in the Big Woods) that my father insisted on knowing what was the fascination with these books.  “Why don’t you read one,” my mother said.  A wise woman, my mother… she gave him “Farmer Boy” first.

Grandpa got his first tractor when Dad was nine, but Dad remembers farming with mules and horses.  Naturally he loved “Farmer Boy”.  It was a time consuming read for him, but when he finished he said, “Give me the next one.”  He eventually read all nine in the series and then told my mother to “find me something else to read.”

Now you must realize that Sunday afternoons at our house did not include sports on TV.  Oh, no!  My father watched Western movies on Sunday afternoons.  A wise woman, my mother… she filled my father’s request for something-else-to-read with Zane Grey… which of course, was followed by Louis Lamour.  At the age of 54 my father had become a reader!  He was always literate – but he wasn’t a reader until then.

Dad’s reading for pleasure fizzled for a while, but when I sent him Richard Peck’s Long Way from Chicago his reading was renewed.  Peck’s recent books have been marketed to his usual Young Adult audience, but they aren’t really appreciated by that audience.  Adults – especially his contemporaries – absolutely love all of Peck’s books since Grandma Dowdel first picked up her shotgun.  When Dad finished reading Fair Weather he called me to talk about the book.  “Best Peck book ever,” Dad declared.  Growing up I never expected to have a conversation with my Dad about literature, but here it was!

Dad was 73 on March 18th.  These pages honored him that day as I reviewed Schmidt’s First Boy. My parents are retired now and spend several months each year serving with RVICS.  As they travel they purchase books about places they visit and they both read in the evenings now.  My Dad was once a literate non-reader.  Now he reads.

I know parents are often proud of their kids.  Well, I am proud of my parents – the way they serve others rather than themselves with their retirement, the sensible way they are handling aging, and the way they have always lovingly supported my brother and I and our families.  But I can’t tell you how proud I was to share with my students that my Dad, although a late bloomer, finally became a book lover.  I didn’t share all of the details above with my students, but I turned it into a story for them.  If Cal in That Book Woman didn’t inspire them, I hope the personal narrative about my father did!