Planting a Seed

A story is a seed. Planted in a child’s imagination, it can grow to bear fruit. By that I mean the books they will go on to read after they’ve discovered the joys of reading. I was reminded of this recently when I got a lovely email from a young woman whom I’d last seen when she was a child. Young Alex was a bright, inquisitive girl, the daughter of a coworker of my husband. Sandy and I once took her out on the town, for lunch and a shopping expedition when she was in fourth grade. And since a day on the town isn’t complete without visiting a bookstore, in my view, we took Alex to a Barnes & Noble store, where I picked out and purchased some books I thought she’d enjoy. I hadn’t seen her since but remembered her fondly.

In her email, she wrote that she is now in her twenties and a fourth-grade teacher. She wanted to thank me for making her an avid reader of her back when she was a reluctant reader. The books I’d bought for her on that long-ago day had planted a seed in her that grew and flourished. She remembered the care with which I’d selected the books. Each one was a book I’d read and loved. As a writer, I also know that to grab a child’s imagination you have to act fast. By that I mean you have to hook them on Page One.

Unlike adults who read books for a variety of reasons, children will read a book for two reasons only: If it’s assigned reading in school or they find it so compelling they can’t put it down once they’ve started it. The books I gave to Alex had not only captured her interest, but they’d also opened up a whole world for her. The world of books and reading. The world in which I, myself, have dwelled since I first learned to read.

It got me thinking about the books that had captured my imagination when I was a child: The books I’d gotten as gifts and the library books that filled my bike basket on return trips from the public library in our town. I was a huge fan of The Wizard of Oz series. If a particular title was checked out by the time I’d finished the earlier books in the series, I eagerly awaited the day when it was back in circulation. After devouring the Oz books written by L. Frank Baum, I wasn’t at all satisfied with those written by Ruth Plumly Thompson after his death. They were okay, but they weren’t a patch on the originals.

Other books I read and loved back then: The Nancy Drew series, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Old Yeller, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, to name a few. The first adult book I read, when I was in fourth grade, was Jane Eyre. It lit the fire that burns in me to this day—the fire to become a writer. What a story! It’s got it all: the poor unloved orphan girl turned governess, the dashing but haunted hero, the spooky mansion, the crazy woman in the locked room upstairs. I adored it and since then have reread it several times.

It influenced my earliest writings, starting with the short story I wrote in fourth grade titled “Secret of the Mossy Cave.”

I was reminded of the power of storytelling when Alex wrote to say that I’d turned her onto reading. The seed I’d planted in her imagination had borne fruit, and she is now sowing the seeds from that fruit among her students. Noting could make me happier.

Because the love of reading is the greatest gift of all: the gift that keeps on giving.