For the Love of Books

The other evening when I answered the phone, I was greeted with a little giggle. The giggle belonged to my six month old granddaughter. My son came on the line to explain. He had just been reading a book to her, and at certain points of the story she broke into giggles. She obviously found the book amusing. He had us on speaker phone so we could talk and listen to her at the same time. I discovered that every time I said "Boo! , she giggled. This went on for a few minutes until she got the hiccups.

My children all enjoyed books from a very young age. When their favorite auntie came to visit, they would all snuggle around while she read to them. When Gramma came to visit she would often bring a new book. She loved reading to them and they loved being read to. Bedtimes were always a time to read together. Sometimes the children would read to one another.

I have loved reading since I first saw a book. The schools I attended had very small libraries and it did not take me long to read all the books in it. I would often read the next grade readers just so I would have something to read. I do not remember ever having my parents read any books to me, but I do remember the story telling. Many of the tales were told in rhyme and were easy to repeat. My brother, sixty years since he first heard a Polish verse about a bird flying to Warsaw for a wedding, can still repeat it in clear Polish. I remember one exercise in Polish in which you would say one word over and over quickly, and when you were finished you had another word. The first word was sloma and you said it over and over and you ended with maslo. The joke was that you had just turned sloma (straw)into maslo (butter).

Another little story was one which never really had an end. It goes like this: It was a hot evening and my family and I had nothing to do so we decided to sit on the window ledge and eat potatoes, when along comes a policeman and asks, "What are you doing?"
The man responds by saying, "Well, it was a hot evening and family and I had nothing to do so we decided to sit on the window ledge and eat potatoes, when along comes a policeman and asks, "What are doing?" ................ You get the idea. It does not have the same sound to in English, as Polish is a much gentler language. Also, the story has more meaning if you knew that it was illegal to sit in your window ledge after dark in Poland and that all the poor Polish people had to eat was potatoes.

I do have one book which was my mother's which she brought with her from the Ukraine. It was her beginner reading and writing book in school. Since I can not find a publishing date I can only guess that it is at least one hundred years old. The book starts with letters and sounds, pictures, and then progresses to stories. It is in Ukranian so I am unable to read it, but I remember having a friend who was fluent in Ukranian, read it to me many years ago. The stories are not that much different than the ones our children read. As a matter of fact, one of the stories in the book is the one about the lost mitten. I remember buying the new modern artsy version as a gift for a child. I don't think people realize how old the story is. I know I didn't until I saw it in this book.

The big difference in the modern version as compared to the original is that the ending has been made less violent. In the old version all the animals nestled in the mitten get shot by a hunter, and in the modern version the animals overcrowd the mitten and it flies apart. The gentler version would make it more bedtime friendly, that is for certain. I laughed out loud when I saw the little black and white drawing of the hunter with the gun. I did not need know how to read Ukranian to understand the outcome of that story. I guess it could be deemed a happy ending as the hunter now had lots of food for his family.

I know that my parents enjoyed reading. I close my eyes, I can come up with a picture of my mother and father sitting near the coal oil lamp, reading. I think that my mother spent a lot of time reading the Bible. My father, who also read the Bible, read other books and even subsribed to a newspaper from Poland. It was called Czas, which means Time. It was an exciting time when the newspaper arrived - it was if we were touched by Poland.

My father, like myself, wanted to be a writer. He read many pooks of poetry either in Ukrainian, Polish and even Russian. He did not have much schooling, perhaps a grade six equivalent, but somehow mangaged to teach himself all these languages. I can say with all honesty, however, he never did master the English language. If he were around, he would beg to differ. Nonetheless, he wrote many songs and poetry. He would recite his poetry and sing his songs, and I often was his solo captive audience. Perhaps it was he who fired up my interest in reading and writing. I remember that he had the Polish version of the book called Pilgrim's Progress and I did muddle through a few pages so that I could impress him. I then went to the library and got the book written in English.

Thanks to reading many incredible books, I have been able to travel to many countries, my passport being a library card.