Reading Season by Theresa Gauthier

 Reading has seasons. Some people schedule the types of books they read by the season of the year: holiday books in November/December. Scary books in October. Few reading seasons get the same attention as Summer. With Memorial Day behind us, we can see a long stretch of days devoted to outdoor activities, vacations, day trips and all the things that fill the long, hazy, lazy, crazy days of Summer. 

Like reading.

Yes, reading. To a lot of people, Summer Reading means a short list of books assigned by your school, or kids’ schools, to get you through the transitional period between grades or give you a jump start on your September classes. 

Here’s my secret: I never had that. 

Not once in my school career was I ever assigned a book to read during the summer months, over the winter holidays, or over spring break. From kindergarten through college, my summers were my own to read whatever I wished. While I was in school, I knew a lot of people who wouldn’t have dreamed of reading an unassigned book at any time, but certainly not over the summer. To me, summers were made for reading. When it gets too hot to do anything outdoors, when the nights were long and the fan didn’t do much to cool things down, I’d open a book and forget about the discomfort. 

    Lost in whatever world I was reading about (Civil War era New England with Louisa Alcott’s Little Women;  the English countryside in Francis Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden; A farm in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web; The Great Plains in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie Series; The Starship Enterprise in myriad Star Trek Novels; intergalactic planets and space stations or even London in a variety of Doctor Who Novels; Ancient Egypt, Renaissance  Italy, and one glorious summer, a dozen or more Shakespeare plays.) I didn’t mind the heat. I didn’t notice the weather.

I admit that it troubled me for a while. Why had I never been assigned a book over break? It wasn’t even a consideration when/where I went to grade school or high school. It wasn’t a concept anyone discussed at least not with the students. When and where did it start? Why is it a ubiquitous thing now? How did I miss it?

Regardless, my summers never lacked for books. I couldn’t NOT read. If I had nothing else, I’d read the cereal box, but thanks to the Free Library of Philadelphia, I always had something to read. 

The library was a special place for me. I’d go every couple of weeks with my sister and my father. Dad would drop us off at the kid’s department, and wander off to find something for himself. My sister and I would browse, sometimes together and sometimes separately and we’d each choose five books. That was the limit then. With the two week deadline to return the books, that gave us two weeks to read ten books. That’s what we did. We’d read our own selections first and then swap. In truth, we’d often finish well ahead of the two week timeframe and be obliged to read a favorite book or two again. 

Summers were best because with our days free, it was easy to find time to read. Before long, I read the books my father checked out. (Rather, I read some of them.) The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is one he let me read. I’d just seen one of the films on TV with Michael York as D’Artagnan, and I loved the book as much as I loved the movie. The Wagon’s West Series by Dana Fuller Ross is one all three of us devoured. This seemed like an endless series, and I adored being able to talk about it with both my sister and my father. 

Soon enough, my sister and I developed likes and dislikes we couldn’t share. She loves Stephen King. I tried a few, recognize the talent, but I can’t read him. I love Joanne Harris. She didn’t care for the book (Coastliners, published in 2002. ) I loaned to her. Regardless, when we were in college we anticipated our free weeks of summer reading with equal excitement.

I don’t read particular types of books at particular seasons. I’m just as apt to pick up Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol in July as I am in December. My summer selections are frivolous or heavy, fiction or non-fiction, current bestsellers, or backlist. For me it’s not about what I read. It’s just about reading. 

Now, with summer approaching, I’m sure the days will be long and hot, and I’m sure I’ll fill them with as many books as I am able.