“Books are a uniquely portable magic”–Stephen King
Those trips to the children’s library and the cheap supermarket books paid dividends once I started school. You didn’t have tell me twice to read out loud. I don’t remember much about titles except “Cupcakes or Rocks?” and “Scat Scat Little Cat”.
Supposedly, I loved a book about beavers that showed cut-away views of their den and dam. I had memorized the words so I would turn the page like I was actually reading. This was my little party trick that mom and dad got me to do for company. Later, I think they had me balance a ball on my nose and bark like a seal.
Our second grade reader (I assume it was ‘Tom and Susie’ or something else vanilla) had a dog named Flip that I thought was a guru. He could have a ball in his mouth and smile at the same time.
The only book I remember clearly was ‘Ping’ (no, not ‘Pingu’). Ping was a young cormorant whose parents belonged to a Japanese Ukai fisherman (look it up). He decided he didn’t want to fish for the Ukai anymore; he wanted to eat everything he caught. So he somehow got the ring off his neck. Well, poor Ping. Sometimes he couldn’t catch enough, and his tummy growled. Bad animals like cats and owls wanted to hurt him. The nights were cold, and he missed mom and dad. Of course, he decided to return to the flock, wear his ring, and be cared for by his parents and the Ukai. Yay!
In later grades, you didn’t read library books in class–you read stories in a box. I think they were called “Power Builders.” You read these 3-6 page stories (usually non-fiction) and took a quiz to see what you retained. The stories were grouped together by color codes–after reading 3 or 4 stories (and successfully passing the quizzes) in a section, you got to move up to the next color. The idea seemed to be that the box would sort out the dunces from the smarties. If you were slow, you would take longer on a story and maybe flunk some quizzes, before you moved to the next color. Kids like me whizzed along. The teacher had to keep after the ones not progressing, urging them that they just needed to move up and not compare themselves to others. To this day, I have trouble explaining “the box” t o younger people.
And let’s not forget ‘My Weekly Reader.’ I even got it in the summer.
Around fourth grade, we had book sales. An empty classroom or the auditorium was filled with piles of books. You were given an order form and 30 minutes to look. Decide what you want, fill out the order form and get mom or dad to pony up the cash (yes, cash was accepted; Visa/MC credit cards were for people in NYC and the rich) or check. Then it was up to the poor hapless teacher to pass out the books and deal with messed up orders.
By fifth grade, mom was getting Hardy Boys books from the library for me; doing extra credit book reports was a free plus. I was on my way.