Begin As You Mean To Go On: Children and Reading

It's one of my big things, something I'm particularly passionate about, and something I've been able to work personally on since the birth of my daughter, Alice, on 10th October 2010.

Children and reading.

Reading to children and with children, letting them choose their own books, watching their excited faces when they learn to turn the pages by themselves, or when they walk into a library for the first time.

It makes a difference. It shapes their lifelong love - or otherwise - of books, and therefore it's an important part of growing up. It can make them who they become. I know it did with me.

The best part is, it can be shared with one or both parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, teachers, or anyone else come to that, but it can also be a solitary pursuit, and there's enjoyment to be had in reading alone as well. That's a lesson in itself.

I have incredibly clear memories of sitting with my mother and listening intently as she read from one of my many story books. Time together, peaceful and serene and perfect. There was a library not too far from our house, and once a week or so we would walk there to exchange old books for new. I had a special book bag, and collected badges that the librarians had on their desk.

Books for birthday presents were some of the most exciting, more cherished than toys or clothes, and book tokens... Well, the magic was endless when I opened an envelope and those fluttered out! My own 'money' to buy my own books with.

I wanted Alice to experience that joy, so when I was still pregnant, I collected as many books as I could, and stored them on shelves in her nursery, ready for the time when she would start looking through them. Picture books, cloth books, hardback, paperback, classics and new creations - she has hundreds.

And as soon as she was born, I read to her. She was a few hours old, the hospital visitors had gone, and I fished a tiny little book of nursery rhymes out of my hospital bag. That night, the tiny baby in my arms heard all about the twinkling stars, baa-ing black sheep, and an egg that no one could fix.

It went on like that. I read to her whenever I could.

Now, at just over two and a half, Alice loves her books. Whenever we go on a car journey, she must have at least three to leaf through, even if we're only popping to the shops. We read together every day - I read the 'real' story to her, and then she 'reads' her own version to me. When she goes to bed, she asks for some books, and she sits poring over them until she finally nods off.

I can't ask for more than that.

Flash Fiction: Card Reading

Julia stopped card reading on her forty-fifth birthday. It used to be a favourite past time of hers, to leave the hectic stream of the high street and enter the bright, warm, orange infused glow of the greetings card shop, her glasses instantly misting and then clearing as she started to make her way to the with sympathy section. She’d always start there; she felt it grounded her, reminded her that she was mortal, made her appreciate the life she was living. She tried to remember those cards when she was frustrated, or angry, or just generally having a bad day. It sometimes even worked.

After her sobering start, she moved to the anniversary cards. She had no one to buy one for, but it didn’t stop her looking. Pastel colours or bright, bright reds and pinks, hearts, flowers, teddy bears… Soppy and silly, but so beautiful in their charming, clichéd way.

Other sections received a brief glance, and special occasions, such as Valentine’s or Christmas, necessitated a much longer rest stop in the shop, since it was often busier inside than out. But no matter what, the birthday cards were never ignored. This was what she came for. This was what she adored, and this is what she wanted. She spent long minutes, if not hours, searching for just the right card. Sometimes she came away with nothing. Usually she came away with nothing. So far, from her hundreds of visits to the shop, she had bought just seventeen cards. She only wanted one more.

She never bought her eighteenth card.

It was twenty years before that she went to the psychic to ask her one, specific question; When will I have a baby?

Before you are forty-five, was the answer. Certain. Definite.

It never occurred to Julia that finding a man should be her priority if she was to achieve this goal. She didn’t think of that at all; instead she planned everything else, bought everything, painted and decorated a nursery, bought a stock of nappies and clothing in different sizes, opened up a savings account for her child’s education. She had so many toys she had to store most of them in the loft, in cardboard boxes, labelled ‘Baby’.

On her forty-fifth birthday, Julia stopped card reading. She sat, silent tears of a lost life dripping onto the seventeen birthday cards she had so carefully picked out for her child. The eighteenth would stay in the shop. Someone else could have it.

©Lisamarie Lamb 2011

Flash Fiction: I Watched for 50 Years

I never spoke to her. I never spoke to the woman that I saw almost every day over fifty years, but I knew her. Not her name, or her age, or any of that stuff, but I knew what she felt. Seeing someone so often for so long gives you that insight. I smiled with her, wept for her, loved her and hated her in equal measures. She broke my heart and made my days worth living. And on the days that I didn’t see her, I felt sad. No, more than sad. I was bereft. Those days felt empty.

I first saw her on the day my husband and I moved into our house. We were dog-tired, dragging boxes from moving lorry to hallway, dining room, spare bedroom and so on and so on. We couldn’t afford a proper removal firm, so we did it ourselves. It was, I remember it in perfect, picture-clear clarity, on my journey from the front door to the lorry to help my husband carry our mattress to our new room when I saw her. She was walking along the street, just about to pass our house, pushing a big, ungainly pram. She was wearing a bright blue coat and carried no bag. The baby was crying, but no big, hearty sobs, just a little mewling, he or she was obviously tired. Its mother looked tired too, her eyes bloodshot, her walk slow. But she was smiling down at her child, her cheeks reddened by the brisk winter wind.

I smiled, nodded, and she followed suit, welcoming me to the neighbourhood. The same thing happened a few other times over the next five decades. We didn’t know each other, never would in the proper sense of the word, but we were polite nonetheless. Sometimes I wish I’d asked her in for coffee or a piece of cake or something. Anything. We’d have been friends, probably. But as it was, I didn’t, and she passed by.

For fifty years I watched her pass by. I would wait for her some days, arrange appointments around her, pretend I was doing anything other than waiting for the woman. My husband never knew. He may have wondered why there were days when my mood was low (the days when she missed her walk, or I missed her), but he never questioned me. I wonder what I would have said if he had?

There were other days when my mood was changed by the woman, without her ever even knowing she’d done it. The day when, about two years after I’d first seen her, I noticed her belly was growing. Another baby. I was excited for her. For nine months I watched her getting bigger and bigger, getting slower and slower, and then I didn’t see her at all for a few weeks. They were worrying times for me. But then she started walking again, now with a toddler and a new baby in that same old pram. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt that happy about anything.

I watched the children grow, and on the day when I saw her walking alone for the first time, I realised they were now both at school, and I wept with her, wept for her loneliness and for her wondering what she would do without them during the day. She still walked, and I could gauge the school holidays by whether I saw the three of them or just her. I wondered what else she did. That would maybe have been the perfect time to speak to her, to invite her over, but of course I didn’t do it.

In years to come I noticed that although it was the school holidays, she walked alone. The children, two boys, too old, too cool to walk with their old mum.

But still she walked. She was getting slower as she aged, but she didn’t stop.

And many years later, there was that pram again. Squeaking and ancient but just as good as new really, with a new baby in it. A grandchild, I assumed, and I liked that idea. The walks continued and once a week there was that pram. I’d sit at my window, old now myself, and watch her.

Another couple of years passed. And then she didn’t walk anymore. It was over, just like that. I never saw her again. I had watched this woman mature, her hair grey, wrinkles appearing, her life flowing by as she walked by my house day after day for fifty years.

I drifted away from the window and found other things to do.

©Lisamarie Lamb 2011