For many Kossacks, our learning to read occurred so long ago it's hard to remember how old we were when we first realized we could read a book without help. If I remember correctly, I was about seven, enthralled with the stories in my school reader. There was one about a beautiful princess named May, who was very poor--so poor that the skirt of her dress was made of patchwork. I forget what happened to poor, unfashionable May, but from that point on there was no turning back. I became an inveterate reader.
Follow me over the fold as we examine the consequences of that thrilling realization when we were children.
My father, who loved English literature, did not believe in holding children back when they exhibited signs of intellectual curiosity. He gave me Jane Eyre to read when I was only eight. Of course, I didn't understand it all--that came later, when I reread the book from time to time when I was growing up. Even at eight, though, I could appreciate what a horrible life Jane lived, both at Gateshead and Lowood.
Spending my formative years in a country that had no television and only a couple of hours' worth a day of English language programs on the radio encouraged me to fill my leisure hours with reading. And I did! I read anything and everything that came my way. I remember a delightful book my father brought home for me--Janet Sebring Lowrey's In the Morning of the World. This was a retelling of the Greek myths in a way that young readers could understand. The drawings were marvelous and somehow the smell of the ink on the glossy paper was so special that whenever I dipped into that book to enjoy a particular story again, it wafted my imagination to ancient Greece.
It's hard after the passage of so much time to think how a book read 60 years ago could have changed my life, but this one did because of this opening sentence:
"Now and then there comes a day when the sun is so bright, the air so clear and cool, the sky so blue, the clouds so buoyant, the birds so busy, the flowers so fragrant, the leaves so green, and the shadows so sweet, that to breathe is happiness, and without being able to explain it, we feel exceedingly gay and kind."
So begins the chapter called "For the Fairest," which describes the birth of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty.
This did change my life, for at the age of eight and ever thereafter, the nature of the day's weather has been extremely important to me. When I look at the sky I note the shade of blue it wears--is there a tinge of unhealthy violet, presaging thunderstorms? Is it a hard, polished blue like a summer sky in the tropics, or a cool, clear blue such as one might see over a Canadian lake? Or is it the misty blue of a morning in England, when the weather seems to hover uncertainly between sunlit clarity or foggy grayness ?
That one sentence has made me look at each day and gauge its influence on my mood. I note the weather in my journal. In common with most people, I dare say, I do feel happier, more optimistic, when the sun shines. When the weather is unremittingly foul, I do feel depressed.
What about you? How old were you when you first realized you could read a book all by yourself, and which book was it that changed your life?
Please step up to the plate--I have five slots in June waiting for writers to fill them! Join us at Readers and Book Lovers and tell us your tale.