The Reading Promise Read online

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  Table of Contents

  Reading Group Guide

  Copyright Page

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To the three people who got the ball rolling—Cindy Vitto, Barbara Baals, Mike Winerip—you have no idea how you have changed my life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  My lovely and loving agent, Jennifer Gates: you are like no one else I have ever met. Everything about working with you makes me happy, and everything you do to help makes the project that much better. I could not have gotten any luckier. You are absolutely amazing.

  To my ridiculously talented editor, Karen Kosztolnyik: thank you for believing that a twenty-two-year-old recent college grad could and should write a memoir without a ghostwriter! You took a huge gamble on my behalf, and I hope it pays off. I have so much respect for you, and for what you’ve done with my work. We sensed a connection in just a twenty-minute meeting for a reason: we knew this was right.

  Everyone who is portrayed, however inaccurately, including: my father, my mother, my sister, Dan, Nathan, Brittany, Teece, Steph, and many more: please forgive me if I got anything wrong, and know how much I appreciate you. And double thanks to three people who had to listen to most of my complaining as I slugged through this: Dan, Steph, and Kath. I trust your judgment and your heart. I owe you all a trip to the zoo.

  Big hugs to Holly Capertina, Don Kopreski, Kathy Procopio, and Donna Cedermark, Jesse Zuba (Rowan University, you are making a big mistake if you let him get away!), Nathan Carb, Evan Roskos, Glen Odom, Cathy Parrish, everyone at GCP, read-aloud godfather Jim Trelease, Jeanne Birdsall, the Lemire family, Nikki Jones, Adam Jordan, Adam Chazen, and Ryan S. Hoffman (you truly are a genius). Kisses to the Brozinas, Sandones, and Angelucci-Donofrios. Grammom and PopPop and my personal hero Brett Fauver—always missing you. All my love to Bill and Jane Thurman, and full-speed ahead with Read Aloud Chattanooga! Special thanks to Kevin Dixon for his work on my website (makeareadingpromise.com, if you were absolutely dying to know) and photographers Ryan Collerd and Alex Forster. Fond remembrances to Venue Magazine, my Pub Suite pals, my TVM casts, Angelo’s Diner, and Laurel Hall Room 210. Couldn’t have done it without string cheese, juice boxes (my cure for writer’s block!), and LUSH Cosmetics’ Dorothy bubble bars (and yes, I am mentioning the product specifically in hopes that you will bring it back!). Brian and Rabbi, you are as peerless as felines come. Thanks for sitting outside with me when I wrote on the porch. Go Phils!

  And to my father, who has promised to never read this book because it is embarrassingly mushy, remember the words we will dance to at my wedding: “God only knows what I’d be without you.”

  For Avant, Prospectus, and literary magazines everywhere filled

  with nerdy, wonderful kids—there’s hope for us yet.

  FOREWORD

  by Jim Brozina (Alice’s dad)

  One warm night in the summer of 1998 I returned from taking a friend and her daughter to a concert in Philadelphia to find my own daughter Alice hopping up and down in the driveway like a madwoman, waving her arms and screaming. Since it was nearly midnight, I thought that something terrible must have happened, so I stopped the car and jumped out. She was shouting, “What are you doing? Look at the time! Look at the time!” Then it struck me. I had completely forgotten about our reading streak! We went inside, grabbed our book, and started our night’s reading posthaste.

  Months before, in an effort to stave off the end of my time reading aloud to Alice, fearing she might outgrow it, we had made a pact that I would read aloud to her every night. Never one to use small measures, Alice had boldly stated that our streak should last for one thousand nights. I was taken aback by this, since in the course of a thousand nights, I felt that something was bound to go wrong and that it would be a practical impossibility. However, as a parent and teacher, I felt that my role should be to encourage and not discourage the aspirations of children. Just the same, the idea of a thousand nights did make my head spin.

  As this story will tell you, our streak went on for many nights after that. Through all sorts of turmoil and circumstance we persevered until at last the streak ended almost nine years later. Since Alice and I are both people who do not look for precedent in anything we do, it only seemed a little bit odd that we spent a part of each day reading together from the time she was nine until the summer of her eighteenth year.

  To keep our streak alive, there were some days when our reading started at twelve midnight and some days when we began at an ungodly hour of the morning. There were many times when I had to wake her up from a sound sleep. There were times when she (cautiously) had to awaken me. Neither of us ever complained about these circumstances. We were committed to doing this, and we were not going to allow any sort of inconvenience to stand in our way. Nothing that lasts has been accomplished without effort. The things that we are most proud of took quite a lot to achieve.

  After our readings I would often ask Alice about her day and what was going on in her life. This became a natural way for us to keep in touch.

  Largely, our readings came from the books that were delivered to my school through the three book fairs that I was able to hold for the students each year in my position as a school librarian. From each fair I would bring home a collection of titles that the two of us would mull over, reading sections from each until we had hit on the group of books that would serve our purpose.

  Once started, a reading streak can be a hard thing to stop. The only thing that stopped us was when she moved away from home almost nine years after we began.

  If you want to start your own reading streak, you should begin by taking your child to your local public library, where the two of you can look through the stacks for books that would fit your reading desires. When either of you find something, show it to the other. Let your child overrule your choices if he or she chooses, but be hesitant about rejecting those your child is excited about. Remember, this is being done by you but for him or her.

  When you have accumulated as many books as will serve your purpose for now, check them out and take them home. Your child will be hopping with excitement as he or she anticipates the many good nights of reading ahead. As time goes along, you will both begin to identify favorite authors and series. Some of these you will want to return to again and again. You may consider purchasing the most popular from your local bookstore or through the many booksellers online. These treasures can be passed on from generation to generation. What greater gift to your descendants yet unborn than the love of books and reading?

  My love of reading aloud began when I was very young. My mother, who did not have use of a car during the day as my father took it to work, would walk my brother and me to the local library (a distance of a mile and a half each way), where we were each allowed to check out two books. One was to be read on our own; the other she would read to us.

  If you have been read to as a child, you are much more likely to read to your own children when they come along. Create a family tradition that can be passed on.

  The greatest gift you can bestow upon your children is your time and undivided attention. As the years advance, you may reflect upon your life and see that in some areas, you have regrets about what you took to be a priority. No one will ever say, no matter how good a parent he or she was, “I think I spent too much time with my children when they were young.”

  Children are not easily fooled. They can tell where a parent’s priorities are. When my wife left me I did not seek out companionship for more than six years. I wanted the girls to be absolutely sure that I would be there for them. If one parent moves out and the other is out on the town each night, where does that leave them? I guess they would have to think “Mom’s got her new man, D
ad has his new girl, but who has us?”

  In 1985, the Commission on Reading, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, declared, “The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.” Both reading in school and at home were encouraged. The conclusion the panel reached was, “It is a practice that should continue throughout the grades.”

  As I recall my own years as a student there was only one teacher who read aloud to us, and that was when I was a senior in high school. Mr. Frank Duffy read to us, with great relish, the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare. At the time the other students and I thought that he was goofing off and that he must be too lazy to really teach us anything. A couple of weeks into his reading we could hardly wait to hear what happened next. Everyone sat leaning over in his or her chair to catch every word. If any of the other students started talking while Mr. Duffy was reading, they were quickly told to be quiet and identified as real fools.

  The end result of his taking time to read to us instead of having us read it to ourselves was that I have retained a lifetime interest in Shakespeare’s works. What good would it have done if Mr. Duffy had taught this in the usual fashion so that when finished we would hope never to hear the name William Shakespeare again?

  I doubt that Alice will tell you this in her story, but she was one of only three (out of over three hundred) students in her eighth-grade class to score “advanced proficient” in the reading section of her state test. At the time our reading streak was more than four years along. She had the highest PSAT in her class when she was in the eleventh grade. At that time our streak was in its seventh year. And she won two first-place awards in national writing competitions while a senior in high school, by which time we had been reading more than eight years without a miss.

  All this has certainly not made Alice a dull girl. I think in everyone’s life there is an incident that defines them, that shows their character and what they are made of. I never made or wanted Alice to take a job while in school; I think those days should be reserved for learning and having fun. There is plenty of time for the workaday world in the years to come, and I made enough through my work at the schools to provide what was necessary for both of us. Alice was free to do as she pleased in her spare time. She took it upon herself to write a play called Tiny and organized other talented teens to help her put this play on at one of my schools during summer vacation.

  Other than providing the money she would need for costumes and incidentals, I had no role in this except as the adult in attendance. For her players she used students from my school who had volunteered to take part in her production. These students ranged from the second to the fifth grade. None had ever taken part in an adventure such as this. My school has always had a poverty rate of 88 percent or above. She could have chosen the more affluent school that she had attended as a child, which was located near our home, but it was her purpose to bring this sort of activity to children who had never experienced such things before.

  Over forty students returned permission slips, which were very specific about what would be required of the actors as far as rehearsal times and dates. Less than half of her potential thespians attended the first rehearsal. The one who had shown the most potential in tryouts quit when she found that she had not been given the female lead. It was all downhill from there.

  At play practice attendance was rarely more than half the players who were scripted for parts that day, and those who came often arrived late. Her patience was sorely tested as key players would stop attending rehearsals for days at a time with no notice or reason. Her script had to be redone again and again as she dropped roles or combined them to meet the number of players she could count on being at practice. Those who had dropped out would sometimes return after a week and want their parts back.

  I was heartsick at watching what was going on and what stress Alice was forced to work under to make this play a reality. Never once did Alice lose her temper or give way to despair. I hated to bring the subject of the play up with her in our spare time as I did not want my trepidations to overly influence her. I truly think that what she went through would have tested the patience of a saint and broken a man stronger than Ahab, but day after day Alice would regroup herself and refocus upon what could still be done instead of what had been lost.

  The conclusion was a play that would have done a high school theater department proud. And she did another play the following year to similar results. Caring, confidence, and optimism define her. I have never known her to commit a mean-spirited act or to even think of putting herself ahead of others.

  Before I had any children I used to say, “When they come along I will not speak to them until they are sixteen, and then I will tell them to get a job.” Holding them in my arms made me rethink that idea. I have discovered very little in life that I am adept at doing. I cannot fix your car, repair your roof, or even drive a nail straight. However, I have given everything I have to being a father, and I happily stand back to see the results.

  If a child sees something in a parent that that child aspires to, he or she will copy that parent and be content. If children feel that a parent is living a life that shows compassion and understanding, patience and love, that child will not have to reach a stage of rebellion against that parent. Why rebel against someone who has listened to you and wants to help you fulfill your dreams? A parent who has proven time and again that the growth and happiness of his or her children is priority number one does not have to worry about where those children are heading in life. They will be sensitive and productive members of society for as long as they live.

  This story is by and about one such girl.

  THIS IS NOT A BOOK

  ABOUT BOOKS

  This is a book about people.

  This is a book about the living, breathing creatures in the world around us who need our love. This is a book about how books can bring people together, and how that bond can last a lifetime. There are no in-depth discussions of symbolism, no characters are painstakingly analyzed, and no one stops what they are doing to ponder the meaning of a line or a phrase while riding a roller coaster, eating a sandwich, or dancing to a swing band. My father and I did these things, and perhaps they could have made for a good book. But it is not this book.

  This book is about the act of reading, and the time spent doing it. This book is about the 3,218 nights my father and I spent reading anything and everything we could find. The books are important, but the conversations they started, and the bonds they created, are what really matter.

  The titles may be familiar. The conversations may remind you of your own. For many of you, this could be a trip down memory lane. But if you haven’t read a single book that we read, or you tend to fall asleep before you can finish a chapter—even if you’ve never been read to and never read to another person, this book is for you, too.

  When I remember the promise I made to and with my father, the books are key players. But the star was, and always will be, the man who read them and the devotion he showed me by reading them aloud.

  This book is about the quilt of our lives, and all the patches—some tattered, some vibrant—woven together by the books we read. This book is about remembering what you were reading when your sister moved away, but also remembering what that last hug felt like. This book is about remembering the words on the pages, but never forgetting whose head was on your shoulder while you read them. This book is about growth, and change, and fear, and hope, and triumph, and yes, books. It is about all of those things, because reading never is, and never can be, just about the characters and the plots.

  Reading to someone is an act of love. This book is, above all else, a love story.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Day 1

  “I am terribly afraid of falling, myself,” said the Cowardly Lion, “but I suppose there is nothing to do but try it. So get on my back and we will make the attempt.”

  —L. Frank Baum, The W
onderful Wizard of Oz

  It started on a train. I am sure of it. The 3,218-night reading marathon that my father and I call The Streak started on a train to Boston, when I was in third grade. We were reading L. Frank Baum’s The Tin Woodman of Oz, the twelfth book in the beloved Oz series, a few hours into our trip. The woman across the aisle turned to us and asked why my father was reading to me on a train. We simply told her that this was what we always did—he had been reading to me every night for as long as I could remember, ever since we read Pinocchio when I was four. Being on vacation didn’t make much of a difference. Why not read? Why not always read?

  But her surprise made us think. If we were going to read on vacation anyway, how hard could it be to make reading every night an official goal? I suggested to my father that we aim for one hundred consecutive nights of reading, and he agreed to the challenge. This is how I remember it.

  If you ask my father, though, as many people recently have, he’ll paint an entirely different picture.

  “Lovie,” he tells me, as I patiently endure his version of the story, “you’re cracked in the head. Do you want to know what really happened or are you just going to write down whatever thing comes to mind?”

  Lovie, as I’m sure you can guess, is not my real name. Alice is, but only sort of. My full name is Kristen Alice Ozma Brozina, but I don’t care for Kristen. Alice and Ozma are names my father chose from literature, names I would later choose for myself. It’s a decision that took a long time, but one I’m very happy I made. Those names always felt like my real names to me, as I’ll explain later. Also, Lovie is not the affectionate pet name you might think it is. As are all things in my father’s vocabulary, it is a reference to something—this time it’s Mr. Howell’s nickname for Mrs. Howell on Gilligan’s Island. My father never calls me by my name; Lovie is his most commonly chosen alternative. But when I drop something, or forget something, or do any of the silly things we all manage to do on a regular basis, “Lovie” is often followed by phrases such as “you nitwit!”