National Reading Month

Little known fact: March is National Reading Month. In honor of Dr. Seuss, who was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 2, 1904, National Read Across America Day was first held on March 2, 1998 – and now that 24-hour celebration of reading extends for the full month of March. Designed to encourage people of all ages to dive into a good book, National Reading Month tries to remind us all of the magic worlds waiting to be discovered, no further away than your bookshelf.

I come from a family of readers – literally each of us would rather sit by the fire or jump in bed with a good book than – you know – talk to people.  As a child, I was lucky enough to know my great-grandmother. Books were harder to come by for people of her generation – and I remember being drawn like a moth to the flame to the bookcase in her parlor. There, her gathered tomes led-dust free lives behind glass doors. Locked away from grubby little fingers like mine.

Sparked by those first days of look but don’t touch, I have since lived a thousand lives – lives governed only by my ability to shrug off my day-to-day existence and dive into another place and time.

I have been a settler in Wyoming, in 1870, whilst reading the amazing One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow by Olivia Hawker. A 500-page book so stunning that I not only read it in one sitting – but was powerfully tempted, after finishing the last page, to go right back to the beginning and read it again.

I have been death in The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, narrated by death and set in 1939 – Nazi Germany. A book I purchased in bulk and gave to every reader I know.

I’ve worn a stillsuit and ridden sandworms across the open deserts of Arrakis (Dune – Frank Herbert). I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills (Out of Africa – Isak Dinesen). I have hunted a great white whale (Moby-Dick – Herman Melville). In my mind – I’ve done it all. And thirst for more.

My love affair with books – or, as Hamlet might put it: Words, words, words.

When life stresses you out, be it national reading month or not, pick up a good book, curl up in front of the fireplace, and become someone else, somewhere else, and let your world fall away, to be picked up again another day.