Marjorie has said that the only thing she could possibly hold against her parents is that they never read to her.  The first time someone read to her on a regular basis was in the 4th grade.  At 1:00 each afternoon her teacher would read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books from the Little House on the Prairie series.  Marjorie loved that.  She ate it up.  She looked forward to reading time each day.  All the class loved it, too.  The class was quiet and enthralled.

I have tried to remember my parents reading to me.  I can’t remember any reading sessions except my father reading Walt Disney comic books to Tim and me.  We had a monthly subscription for them.  I think we paid 10-cents per issue.  It was hugely exciting to have the new edition come in the mail each month.  We couldn’t wait to see how the “to be continued next month” adventure about Mickey Mouse would come out.  We knew when the next issue would arrive, so Tim and I would try to be the first one to the mailbox on that day.

Dad would read those comic books to us.  We could each read on our own, but it was more exciting when Dad read them to us.  He enjoyed them, too.  He put great feeling and expression into his readings about “those Aw-w-wful Beagle Boys.”  The Beagle Boys were three or four ex-cons who were constantly concocting new plans of how to break into and drain Scrooge McDuck’s money bin.  Scrooge McDuck spent most of his time diving into his money from the diving board that he installed in his bin.

I never learned to read until I went to first grade.  Mrs. Scott taught me.  She was followed by Mrs. Hansen in my second grade.  Mrs. Parker taught me in both the third and fourth grades.  Mr. Klinchuch taught the fifth grade.  I’m not sure whether it was him, or if it was Mrs. Parker, who, instead of reading an installment from a book each day to the class, had me sit up front and do it for him.  I must have been a good reader.  No one objected, and I enjoyed it.  I did it every day.  I think that it was even left up to me to select the next book to be read to the class.

Mr. Walker was my sixth grade teacher.  He put up a reading chart.  Every time we completed reading a library book on our own, class members were given a sticker that could be glued to the chart beside our names.  When we’d finished a book, Mr. Walker would interview us to see if we’d really read it.  Kenny Johnson and I were in competition to see which of us could get the longest line of stickers.  It was a neck-and-neck race, but I won.  I read 36 books.

Reading out loud is an art.  It takes practice to do it unhaltingly, and without distracting hesitations.  Putting feeling and expression into the reading adds interest, and holds the audience’s attention.  Somewhere, somehow in those early days I learned the art.  I’m grateful that I was given the opportunity.

We read to our children, and now our children are all reading to theirs.  This communicates love and sharpens minds.  Other than our involvement in Church and the religious teachings we gave our children, reading to them is the next best gift that we gave.