Great books the cause of lifelong reading problem

It was 10 or 15 years ago, and I had just wrapped up my presentation at a writer’s workshop at a local campus, and it was time for Q-and-A with the crowd. One of the first questions set me red-faced as an audience member asked what book I was currently reading.

This is never a simple question for me. My nightstand is a dune of books, any of which could qualify as my “current” read, given I grab whatever jumps out at me on any particular evening and dig in. Here, however, truthfulness demanded the title I’d been enamored with for the past three nights.

I paused, stammered a bit and then confessed I was actually rereading one of my childhood favorites, “Where the Red Fern Grows” by Wilson Rawls. Convinced the crowd was expecting something a little more highfalutin than a middle-school-level tale of a country boy and his pair of hound dogs, I tried to buffer my answer by mentioning a “grown-up” title from the New York Times Best Seller list, but the cat was already out of the bag. I could already see the headline, “Writing Instructor Confesses to Reading at the Third Grade Level!”

The simple truth is I have a bit of a reading problem. It’s not a clinically diagnosable disorder but rather a lifelong habit that probably started the second time my mother read me the Dr. Seuss classic “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” as I rocked in her lap. Any book good enough to read once is even better the second time around or third or fourth. You get the picture.

Used bookstores are dangerous ground for me, as I am always apt to bump into an easily available copy of some beloved story from my past. My wife has suggested I not visit such establishments unsupervised, as I am apt to leave with an armful of things I’ve already read — some of which already inhabit my personal library. Still, I persist, oftentimes sneaking my new acquisitions into the house.

My malady paid a wonderful dividend a few weeks ago as I was doing a presentation at a local elementary school in celebration of Right to Read Week — part of my day job with the local Soil & Water Conservation District. Facing a classroom of third-graders, I was halfway through my Skins and Skulls lesson on Ohio’s wildlife when we focused for a moment on the curious abundance of trouble raccoons create for themselves by being so curious and clever.

“I read a really great book about that,” a pigtailed girl in the front row said.

“That book wouldn’t happen to be ‘Rascal’ by Sterling North, would it?” I asked.

“How did you know?” she gasped, her excitement overflowing to neighbors nearby.

“Well, only because it’s the best raccoon book ever!” I said. “I read it when I was your age, and I just so happen to be reading it again right now!”

I had picked up an original copy during last fall’s used-book sale at the fairgrounds and had begun rereading it just a few days before.

Rather than thinking I was just a goofy old man for reading a children’s book, the kids seemed to think it was awesome a grown-up would actually enjoy a book so much he’d read it again and again. I may have just planted the seeds of a similar “reading problem” throughout an entire classroom.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.