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Posts Tagged ‘Harry Potter’

Save Your Books

Posted in Book Club, tagged , , , on August 20, 2018| 6 Comments »

This summer I have been on the hunt for Mel Martin Baseball Mysteries.

Actually my hunt for books in this series began in about 1982.  The Mel Martin series of books that combined baseball and mystery are a series of six – the first two published in 1947 and the other four published in 1952 and 1953.  Several writers contributed to them under the pseudonym “John R. Cooper”.

In 1982 I had two the books in the series, and they were treasured possessions.  They were my dad‘s from his childhood.  They had survived a fire that burned down his house as a child, and made it into my hands in elementary school.  In 1982, at age 9,  I was not much of a reader.  I was a struggling reader.  I remember being teased and marginalized in grade 1 for my weak skills.  My parents helped me every night.  My dad and I would read Hardy Boys books together.  In the beginning he would read them to me, and then over time we would read the books together – alternating pages we would read. Having read all the Aunt Gertrude and Chet Morton we could find (I loved the characters names in the Hardy Boys) we picked up The Mystery at the Ball Park.  Nothing like a book that combined the mystery of the Hardy Boys with my love of sports!

It was pretty cool that I was reading the same books in my childhood that my dad read when he was a child.  The books opened up conversations about growing up.  The language of the books (I still remember they called a fastball a speedball in the stories) were an entry point into the time of my dad‘s youth.  After reading the first two books I remember we spent a Saturday afternoon searching the used bookstores of Vancouver for the other four in the series listed on the dust cover of the ones we had.  There was no Amazon to search – so our search turned up empty.

Fast forward to this summer.

A home renovation unearthed some treasures, including the two Mel Martin baseball stories.  They had moved with me from my parents but been unopened in likely 35 years.  I passed them along to my younger son.  He loved them.

So, the hunt from 1982 picked up again searching for the other four books.

Of course the world-wide web has made this kind of searching a little easier.  We were able to find two at Powell‘s Books in Portland and pick them up while visiting the area.  Finishing those, a few more hours of internet searching found the other two at used books stores in Chicago and Miami.  And while the shipping fees were far more than the cost of the books, it was totally worth it.

My son loved the books.  And owning and reading all six – there was a sense of closure and completion.

The books opened up a conversation about my childhood with my son.

The books opened up a conversation with my son about his grandfather.

They were way more than just baseball mysteries.

I am so thankful my grandparents held onto my parents books from their childhood.  And I am so lucky my mom saved all of the books from my childhood.  We have hundreds of young persons‘ books on our shelves at home that moved from my parents house, many that had moved from their parents houses.  Some people fill their shelves with photos or trinkets from various adventures – we fill ours with books – they are our link to our history.

So, save your books.

I am not sure what this will mean in a digital age. I do not think this really works with e-books. And we use libraries, but we also buy a lot of books.  And we do not tend to give them away.  They are windows into the time we bought them, read them and shared them.  And we can hope that one day our grandkids are reading Hardy Boys, Mel Martin, and Harry Potter and the many other current day books our kids are reading.

I know my dad would be smiling knowing my kids are veracious readers – and some of his books are part of this story.

 

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Harry Potter and More – Young People and Reading

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, SD45, Technology, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2012| 4 Comments »

Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in the TD National Reading Summit III – A Reading Canada:  Building a Plan.  The goal of the National Reading Campaign was to bring together a coalition of readers, parents, writers, publishers, bookstore owners and teachers to create a reading strategy for Canada.

My participation in the event was as panel participant in Young Readers: Strategies for Our Future.  The panel, hosted by Simi Sara, also included Maureen Dockendorf from Coquitlam and Lyne Laganiere from Quebec.  While not my area of expertise, it does hold great interest for me personally (as the father of four young children), and professionally — believing a reading culture, fostered from a young age, is crucial for our society.

So, when it comes to young people and reading, panel participants agreed the state of reading is not as dire as some statistics show (Here is a link to Ontario data which shows a dramatic decrease in young people reporting they like to read), because what we are all seeing is reading for pleasure is, at least, holding if not growing for young people.

A collection of other observations we made:

  • The Harry Potter effect — multi-generations in a household reading the same books at the same time, as books for youth, have often become books for all.   Recently this has been seen with The Hunger Games with kids, parents and grandparents reading the same books.
  • Books that were banned in schools, even a decade ago, are now being used to engage boys in reading — from comic books to graphic novels, to magazines and blogs.  This is all part of a larger theme, that of choice in what kids can read, either in school or at home.
  • Many of the strategies that work with adults to encourage reading, also work with kids — book clubs are on the rise in schools, libraries and the community.
  • Technology is absolutely changing reading, but exactly ‘how’ is not so clear.  One powerful way is how it allows young people to build community around books — just as movies based on books build community.
  • Social media can create networks for young people to connect about their reading. Vancouver teacher librarian, Moira Ekdahl, shared  a wonderful example of how Hazel, a John Oliver student, used technology to build community around her readings.
  • One concern is that with all of our well-intentioned literacy efforts, we are losing some of the joy of reading in our over-analysis and scientific dissecting of works.
  • Another challenge is ensuring we continue to promote Canadian content (and in particular, Aboriginal stories) to our students as they continue to read and become  interested in mass-marketed books like The Hunger Games, and Twilight series.
  • We do need to keep our “eye on the prize” and while there are some boundaries over what we want our kids to read (for example, at the event, the case was made around work that promotes sexual stereotypes) having our students read newspapers, magazines, or even Captain Underpants, opens the door to reading.
  • It is really important to not lament what has been (or perceived to have been) lost over past decades — this is a dangerous cycle — it is more important to look for what is needed and what is possible moving forward.
  • If we want a culture of reading in Canada which includes our young people, we likely don’t need more of what we used to have, but need to build a culture for our changing, and increasingly digital world.
I don’t often take time to separate my thinking around literacy from that of reading.  Having done the thinking around reading, I realize as much as I know how important it is that our students are literate, it is having our kids read which brings great joy.

To close, I want to thank three amazing educators in West Vancouver who have helped me prepare on this topic, are great influencers of my thinking, and are leading the way:  Cathie Ratz, Principal at Irwin Park Elementary School, Jody Billingsley, Vice-Principal at Lions Bay Community School, and Sandra-Lynn Shortall, District-Principal for Early Learning.

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