There are few things that explain summer more than summer reading. It has a different pace than winter reading. It is slow, and outdooresy. The words hang over you like the heat, slow and steady.
I have a few books that I purposely read on in the summer. Madeleine Engle's, The Summer of the Great Grandmother, is one of my favorites. This year, Barbara Robinson's, The Worst/Best School Year Ever, is my new favorite. Telling another Story of the now famous Herdman's family, from the The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, The Story of a sister and brother family who are all familiar to us, in some way or another.
Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie and Gladys - were the worst kids in the history of the world... I know them because they use to live next door to my daughter's family. They were the spiting image of the Herdsmans children. You could never convince me that this book was not a biography.
In Real Life, we would be appalled. Who could let their kids grow up and purposefully become, hoodlums? It happens all the time. We laugh at the antics of the Herdmans.
There were right there in the Woodrow Wilson School, all six of them, spread out, one to a class, because the only teacher who could have put up with two of them at once would have to be Miss King Kong. My father said he bet that was in the teachers contracts along with sick leave and medical benefits: only one Herdsman at a time.
Something magical about summer reading. Any other time of the year, it would not be as funny. It would not ring, so true and those chuckles that escape my lips, would never be. I spent many summers at the library, soaking up everything Nancy drew, that I could. Summer leands itself to a complete change of lifestyle. Even after all these years, the art of summer comes back to me, just like riding a bike - you never forget. The same applies to fall and buying new underwear but that is for a different season.
Grab yourself a book, pull up a chair and see if it isn't magical. Read something you have never read or a familiar one. Makes no difference, the reward is in the way you see it...
