The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma

[katekintailbc]

The Reading Promise
by Alice Ozma
(Audio)

On the news, I had heard the story of Alice's father reading to her every day for over 3,000 days. It was pretty incredible and really neat. So when I saw this book on the shelf when I was volunteering one day at the library, I guessed from the title that this was a book about that--I was right.

The audio starts with a little intro from Alice Ozma's father. So you get to hear his voice--which was not at all what I'd have thought would be enjoyable. But as he continued, I could picture him as a librarian, reading to a class. And it was nice hearing his take on the special event that was the Streak he shared with his daughter. He encouraged us to make time for reading in our lives and to make reading promises of our own.

Alice Ozma's story was wonderful. What a brilliant idea to structure a memoir around books :-) Some of the chapters were related to books, others about incidents that happened while they were reading together, and others about moments where they almost didn't make it. I say this every time I read a memoir, but I don't read a whole lot of memoirs. This one was a fantastic look at a young girl I could relate to. She is clever and funny, and her relationship with her father was realistic, touching, and unique. I devoured each story, each theme, each mention of a book. I could feel the whole range of emotions; Alice did an amazing job of setting tone and telling stories. I was a bit sad when the streak was over, though I knew (like they did) that it was time for it to end.

I was also quite pleased to find a list of some of the books they read together during the streak.

I am crap at reading out loud, especially to people. Even so, this book definitely convinced me that it's a good thing to do with your kids. I remember so many stories my parents read to me when I was young; I see no reason why that shouldn't be shared as long as possible. There are much worse things to bond over with your family than books :-)