Leading up to Sept. 13, I've averaged reading a book every 10 to 12 days for the past 20 years. Depending on how many Jean Auel or Tom Clancy novels I would dive into would determine exactly how many books I would get read annually, but it's always been between 28 and 36 per year.
That average has dropped to one every 30 days since Niranjana has arrived in our lives.
However, I have read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs and One, Two, Three a few hundred times each.
Reading with Niranjana was a troubling experience when we first arrived home with her. She would hold the books upside-down, tear out pages and generally have little interest in having us read them to her.
That's all changed in the past two months. Niranjana loves to read certain books each night before we go to bed, and she also likes to do that a bit now in the morning and other times of the day. This is heartening not only because Melissa and I are writers, but also because of the deep importance literature plays in our everyday lives.
And if we didn't read with Niranjana for at least 20 minutes per day, Melissa would feel extremely guilty, considering her longtime association with the Mid-Columbia Reading Foundation.
Interestingly, Niranjana spends about 20 to 30 minutes each evening "reading" to us. Her memory is remarkable because she has a few books memorized and can accurately tell the entire story as she turns the pages. Then she hands the stack to Melissa to read again, then she gives them to me to read a third (or fourth or fifth or sixth) time before she reluctantly allows us to turn out the lights and go to sleep.
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How to make a librarian's heart bleed
You did it. Good job. That is very good news indeed!
-Christy
Life of Pi - have you read it?
Pi is from Pondicherry, south of Chennai. Although much of the book takes place over the Pacific Ocean, the first part is set in India. I don't know if it's a book you'd enjoy, nothing like a Clancy novel. Jody
Life of Pi
Our neighbor Vanessa gave me a copy for Christmas a couple of years ago. It's one of those books that, as soon as you get the punchline in the last pages, you want to roll back to the first page and start over, looking for hints.
I enjoyed it greatly. Melissa, who read it for her book club, not so much. Too much violence for her.
I didn't realize the main character was from Pondicherry. We went south of Chennai while we were there, but never as far as Pondicherry. In my readings, I think Pondicherry is much more culturally interesting than Chennai.
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