My Early Reading Life
Where would a writer be without a reading life? To be a decent writer, you have to read voraciously, the good and the bad, the classics and the experimental. If not for story, then for craft.
There were four of us in our family: Dad, Mom, Baba, and me. In my teen years, I remember two shelves of books in the corner of the living room. There was History of the World by H.G. Wells, The Bible Storybook, the Funk and Wagnall Encycleopedia, and The Black Deeds of the Kremlin. Dad must’ve bought them all.
Baba was illiterate; she could read neither in her native tongue of Ukrainian or in the English tongue of her adopted land. My mother dropped out of elementary school (grade three) to work on her family’s farm in Ukraine (then occupied by Poland), and when she immigrated to Canada at the age of 14, she managed only several months in a country classroom outside of Winnipeg before she gave up there, too. My dad, though first in his class every year, left grade 9 to work in a stone quarry. A sad story. My Dad’s reasons for quitting are spelled out in my novel, Paper Roses on Stony Mountain, the third book of my historical fiction trilogy.
My First Library
After we got our first car (I was five), Dad introduced me to the library, a boost to my reading life, which had been scant until then. Only a few picture books. With Dad holding my hand, I recall feeling so grown up as I walked up the stone steps and read the words Free For All carved above the entrance of the impressive limestone structure.
I’ve since learned it was constructed with the help of a grant of $75,000 from American industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, whose money helped build 3,000 public libraries in the USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The idea to contact him for help came from John Palmerston Robertson, a journalist with the Winnipeg Free Press. Though a library was sorely needed, the decision to take Carnegie’s money came with controversy. The labour community viewed the industrialist as a robber baron who’d made his money through union-busting. The workers said it had been built with “blood money–money earned by the wholesale murder of working people.”
I knew none of this at the time. I was too enthralled with the grandeur of the place, the rows and rows of books, the smell of the covers, the feel of the pages, and the librarian’s stamp on the card for each book taken out. But our visits to the Winnipeg Library soon stopped when Mom scolded Dad for getting a parking ticket after he’d stayed too long browsing the books.
My Early Reading Habits
With a visit to the library defined by my mother as a too costly trip, Dad decided to subscribe to the Reader’s Digest, a lovely little magazine full of timely articles on health, travel, current news, as well as upbeat personal stories and jokes. I loved the section called, “Laughter, the Best Medicine.” Over a bowl of cereal in the morning, I’d peruse the magazine’s contents which competed for my attention with the night before’s Winnipeg Free Press, my comic books, and the writing on a box of Rice Krispies or Corn Flakes. I had to read, no matter what.
Later, when I was able to get to the library on my own, my reading life was broadened by the books I took out: classics like Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Anne of Green Gables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Little Women, Tom Sawyer, and Gone with the Wind. The authors took me on adventures I could only dream of. As I got older, I moved onto Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Minute Mysteries and replaced comics with Seventeen magazine, Photoplay, and the trashy True Confessions and True Story the roomers upstairs threw out.
My education in the world was growing. Mom and Dad stepped it up a notch, too, by purchasing the Encycleopdia Brittanica from a saleman who showed up at our front door.
I probably would’ve read more, but we got our first television when I was 14. Programming was limited to the evenings (6-10 pm after school and supper); if you didn’t catch the shows then, you missed out.
What About Your Early Reading Life?
What about your early reading life? What books made an impression on your mind? Any favourites? I’d love to hear from you.
I loved hearing about your early library experiences. The library was a big deal in our home growing up as well, though no parking tickets as it was only a short walk from home. I can still “smell” the place and recall my wonder that we could borrow whatever we wanted (as long as it was in the children’s section!).
From one book lover to the next, libraries are the cat’s meow. Those and bookstores. And yes, it was a wonder, still is, that we have access to so many great books.