It’s been a year since L.L.Barkat started this Reading in the Wild journey, so we thought a small birthday party was in order. In that first post she wrote that books matter at Tweetspeak, “so, of course, we’re interested in how literacy happens and how it’s sustained.” We’re still interested in Literacy for Llife.
Writing this monthly feature has transformed my reading. I’ve always read wildly, in a variety of genres, for a variety of age groups, but now that’s kicked into a higher gear. Each month my list becomes a small gift to share with the Tweetspeak community, and then you, in turn, share your lists and more wild reading follows. It’s a circle of life.
These posts began with Donalyn Miller’s 5 Main Characteristics of Wild Readers. We’ll continue using those characteristics as guideposts, but we’d also like to know what other traits you see in wild readers. What reading signposts should we notice? What reading trails do we need to explore?
5 Main Characteristics of Wild Readers
1. They dedicate time to read.
This month has been one of reduced reading, and May will probably be similar. I’ve been back and forth between my house and my dad’s, 81 1/2 miles apart. I thought of LW Lindquist’s post on reading poetry when you can’t read anything else and ordered a collection by Tweetspeak regular Laurie Klein titled Where the Sky Opens. Turns out it’s true — poetry is the perfect thing to read when you just can’t.
2. They self-select reading material.
A few months ago I downloaded Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine on Audible. I didn’t get into it until I was spending so much time in the car, and now I’m relistening. You may know the UK appointed a Minster of Loneliness; that action was taken because of real people like the character of Eleanor, who leaves work every Friday and sees no one until Monday. I fell in love with this character, part Elinor Dashwood, part Jane Eyre. Despite its moments of horror, this story has a strong undercurrent of kindness. (I strongly recommend the audio version, as the story is set in Glasgow, and you need to hear it with a good Scottish accent.)
3. They share books and reading with other readers.
My dad shared Elizabeth Crook’s new book, The Which Way Tree. (In The Joy of Poetry, I wrote about her previous novel, Monday, Monday.) Crook’s new book tells a simple story — basically, Moby Dick with a mountain lion — yet it feels new. The story came from an experience one of her sons had with a mountain lion not far from where I live. She writes in the Acknowledgments, “But a writer can never anticipate where stories will come from. The eyes of that mountain lion held me for years.”
4. They have reading plans.
One of my general reading plans is to read more books by people of color. One that has been highly recommended is We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson. If you’re not familiar with young people’s lit, you might think it’s all the same — all funny or all sweet or all apocalyptic. You’re missing a lot of reference material that is both well-researched and beautiful. Such is Nelson’s book, complete with a bibliography, filmography, and endnotes, as well as full-color paintings, some of which span more than one page. This is one to read in hardcover. The book won the Coretta Scott King Award and The Robert Sibert medal.
5. They show preferences.
I almost always prefer fairy tales. In the Through the Looking Glass workshop, we read Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney, who passed away in 2016. She died as one of her grown children read her The Princess and the Goblin, a 19th century fairy tale by George MacDonald. In it, Princess Irene is brave, wise, and truthful — that’s how you know she’s of royal blood. I also love the ending, which is an author aside. (This part of the story is written in italics.)
“Then you’re leaving the story unfinished, Mr. Author!”
“Not more unfinished than a story ought to be, I hope. If you ever knew a story finished, all I can say is, I never did. Somehow, stories won’t finish. I think I know why, but I won’t say that either, now.”
April’s Pages
Finished
Adult
The Which Way Tree, Elizabeth Crook
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
Early Readers and Picture Books
The Widow’s Broom, Chris Van Allsburg
Middle Grade and YA
The Princess and the Goblin, George MacDonald
We Are the Ship, Kadir Nelson
Sliced (Got what I needed and moved on or plan to finish someday.)
Nope
Abandoned (Not my cup of tea, it bogged down quickly, or others beckoned.)
Nope
Started (Will I finish? Of course!)
Where the Sky Opens, Laurie Klein
Your turn
1. Share anything about you and the 5 main wild reader characteristics. How do you display them, or wish you did, or plan to in the future?
2. Share your April pages. Finished, sliced, started, and abandoned are all fair game.
Photo by Martyn Fletcher, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome, author of The Joy of Poetry.
Browse more Reading in the Wild
- Perspective: The Two, The Only: Calvin and Hobbes - December 16, 2022
- Children’s Book Club: A Very Haunted Christmas - December 9, 2022
- By Heart: ‘The night is darkening round me’ by Emily Brontë - December 2, 2022
Glynn says
A short-term work project that’s nice for the income but playing havoc with the writing and reading schedules rose and peaked during April. It’s beginning to slow down a bit, so I’m hoping the time for reading will be picking up. Read during April:
Fiction
The Letters of Ivor Punch by Colin Macintyre
Unveiling by Suzanne Wolfe
I Iolo by Gareth Thomas
Return to Paradise by Tim Speer
Mystery
Miss Christie Regrets by Guy Fraser-Sampson
Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves
Edinburgh Twilight by Carole Lawrence
Poetry
The Fall of Arthur by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Chance of Home by Mark Burrows
Zoom by Susan Lewis
Non-fiction
Reimagining Britain by Justin Welby
Faith
Secret Power by Dwight Moody
Earlier this week, I did finish reading “A History of Pike County Mississippi 1789-1876.” Odd, I know; not exactly a bestseller, even when it was published in 1909. Some of my ancestors came from Pike County; my great-grandfather was born there and my grandfather was born in Lincoln County, just to the north of Pike. History is embedded in these county names – Pike named after James Zebulon Pike (he of Pike’s Peak) and Lincoln after the President. As a political control move during Reconstruction, part of Pike County was split and combined with pieces of a few others to form Lincoln County. So my great-grandfather and grandfather were born in the same place but officially in two different counties.
This reading is part of a writing project. I had something of a breakthrough this week in finding the next oldest generation. The family could only be traced back to my great-grandfather – it was as if a wall existed to block anything earlier. And then, after persistent digging, a click on a web page revealed the great-great-grandparents, born in 1771 and 1782 and married in 1800. Family lore has always associated the ancestors with Georgia and being dumped off the boats from the debtors prisons in England. There was a Georgia connection, but it was tenuous and lasted only a few years. The real story was in Kentucky; both of my great-great-grandparents were born in what eventually became Louisville and moved to Savannah, Georgia, for a time after they married. And they seem not to have been English but Scotch-Irish.
He died in 1819; she returned to Kentucky and lived there the rest of her life, never remarrying. Their son moved to Pike County Mississippi. He would have been 16 at the time of his father’s death. Did he return to Kentucky with his mother for a time? Did he move directly to Mississippi? No one will likely ever know.
But it’s the stuff stories are made of.
Megan Willome says
Glynn, that is such fascinating family history. You’re bringing up reading of a whole different kind.
Sandra Heska King says
Most of my reading this month, as the last couple of months, was as a result of your class or your recommendations, Megan, and were children’s or youth books, so…
The Widow’s Broom, Tami Duna
26 Fairmount Avenue, Tomie DePaola
The Hunterman and the Crocodile, Baba Wague Diakite
The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
H is for Haiku, Sydell Rosenberg
What Do You Do With An Idea, Kobi Yamada
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White.
The Book With No Pictures, B.J. Novak
I’ve started the Wonder Years: 40 Women Over 40 On Aging, Faith, Beauty, and Strength, edited by Leslie Leyland Fields. When the book came, I went directly to the essay Luci Shaw wrote (cuz she’s older than I am) and then read what friends had written. So I’ve sliced it up, but I’ll finish it.
I’ve started/sliced various books (as I have a habit of doing)…
But I *have* finally started to keep an actual list of books read and to read. So I’m making progress. I just put Nelson’s book on hold–because baseball. And got whacked with my first fine–10 cents for not returning Ramona on time.
Glynn… I love when you can tie history to family. There’s something deep about those connections. That’s how I feel about Michigan’s Metz fire and Henry Ford’s old-time dance orchestra. My great-grandfather was his dulcimer player, and my dad used to go to the dances where Henry and his wife would come help teach the kids.
Megan Willome says
Sandy, you’ll love the baseball book. It’s written in the voice of an unnamed player, seen through his eyes.
When I started keeping a list of books read, it helped me finish more books. I don’t know why. Does anyone else keep a list?
Kortney Garrison says
Have you heard the audiobook of 26 Fairmount Avenue? It’s read by Tomie and is a pure delight!
Sandra Heska King says
I have not. But I will. 🙂
Megan Willome says
I haven’t listened to the audiobook either, Kortney. Thanks!
Maureen says
6. They go broke buying books. OR They have a permanent membership in a local library.
———————
I’m taking Neil Gaiman slowly, still reading a few essays at a time from ‘The View from the Cheap Seats’. (I think he might have benefited from leaving out a few of the same types of essays.)
From the ‘Art of’ series: Edwidge Danticat’s ‘The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story’. It’s Excellent, as everything in this series is.
Constant, continuous reading of poetry of all kinds, including Wendy Chen’s moving ‘Unearthings’; Tayor Mali’s beautiful poems of love in ‘The Whetting Stone’; Mather Schneider’s ‘A Bag of Hands’.
Just starting on Jenny Xie’s collection ‘Eye Level’. Will be reading Leila Chatti’s chapbook ‘Tunsiya/Amrikiya’. Along with the Carlson-Wee brothers, Leila’s among the strongest and most talented young poets publishing.
Dipping in and out of John Berger’s ‘Portraits’. Great art criticism.
Almost finished with Richard Lloyd Parry’s ‘Ghosts of the Tsunami’, a beautifully written and deeply tragic account of the 2011 tsunami, and especially of the school children of Okawa Elementary who died. Parry’s accounts of survivors’ stories are heart-rending.
Also read ‘Boy 30529’, Felix Weiberg’s memoir of his time in Nazi camps.
Maureen says
A typo: That last one is by Felix Weinberg.
Megan Willome says
Maureen, I like your number 6. In my dad’s move, I packed up 110 banker’s books of books. We overwhelmed two libraries with donations.
Kortney Garrison says
I agree View from the Cheap Seats is a very thick book. Have you read his Norse Myths? Groundbreaking! And Neil reads the audio version!
Megan Willome says
Kortney, I listened to “Norse Mythology” on audio because I so like Gaiman’s voice. Now that you’re familiar with those ancient myths, I recommend diving into the Magnus Chase series by Rick Riordan, that sets those myths in contemporary Boston in a YA context.
Laura Lynn Brown says
A year already? Happy birthday, monthly feature!
I did not know that the UK had appointed a minister of loneliness. Interesting. I’ve requested Eleanor Oliphant from the library, where apparently it’s crazy-popular, especially for a book by a foreign first-time author (all 51 hard copies are checked out, and 7 of us are on the waitlist; 117 readers are waiting for 37 digital copies and 51 listeners are waiting for 14 audiobook copies).
An article in the Guardian about the book and author Gail Honeyman says, “It is a story of the transformational power of small acts of kindness, often involving food: complimentary truffles with a cup of coffee, a plate of biscuits to accompany a mug of tea.” Hm. Would it make a good book club book?
Maureen, 6 is right. If only books appreciated like … whatever asset appreciates well.
Megan, I keep reading lists intermittently, and I think you’re right that list-keeping leads to more book reading. I did not, however, keep a list in April.
Megan Willome says
Yes, Laura, it would be an excellent book club read. I also read that article, and the description is spot-on
Eleanor is an unreliable narrator, so be patient with her. She blossoms with kindness.
Sandra Heska King says
Writing this down on my to-read list. 🙂