Tag Archives: Reading

Do You Like Books or Love Books

14 Apr

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Author, Poet and ArtistAbout a year ago, I started taking a family consisting of Mother, Laura, two-year-old Sunny, teen-aged cousin, Rita, and fifth grader, Clarisse, to the library every three weeks. I did it because Rita is an avid reader, but lost a book from the high school library and couldn’t check out any more until it was found or paid for (which eventually happened). I understood what it might be like not to have anything to read because I too am an incurable reader, though until recently I’ve only been able to read LP books.

The first time we went, Rita selected so many books that when she stacked them she had to hold them at arm’s length. She placed her chin on the top one to steady the stack. That was an endearing sight.

We went again this last Sunday, but this time I was the greedy one. I checked out six novels and three non-fiction books from the NEW bookshelves. Books are almost as important as shelter or clothing to a writer.

Fiction

  1. The Fever Tree, Jennifer McVeigh
  2. Lookaway, Lookaway, by Wilton Barnhardt.
  3. The Cleaner of Chartres, by Salley Vickers
  4. Tapestry of Fortunes, by Elizabeth Berg
  5. A Nearly Perfect Copy, by Allison Amend
  6. One Glorious Ambition, by Jane Kirkpatrick.

Non-Fiction

  1. Smart Chefs Stay Slim: Lessons in eating and living from America’s best chefs, by Allison Adato.
  2. This is the Story of A Happy Marriage, by Ann Patchett
  3. To the Moon and Timbuktu, by Nina Sovich,

So that’s the list of what I have to look forward to. I feel rich. I teased Rita a bit when I showed her I had more books this time than she did. She was proud to announce that she left a few she wanted, knowing they would be there the next time she came back. Oh, yes? I’m not so sure about that, I wasn’t taking any chances this time.

Do you have your books in the public library? We have ours in two libraries in our county and in the Orlando Public Library as well. Bill just asked and they took them. You never lose by giving things away. God always gives more than we do, and some people read so many books they can’t possibly afford to buy them all. I understand Amazon Kindle has a lending policy, as well. There are a lot of benefits to being open-handed. “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

boat

 

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Top Grade Literacy

11 Mar

My Take

DiVoran Lites

jungle divoran

I’ve always liked kids, reading, and books. That was the reason I took on a once a week job with reading challenged kids. It was fun. I learned a bit about ADHD, Dyslexia, and people who can read, but don’t comprehend what they read. We had young man stuck in the sixth grade because although he could mentally photograph a page, he could not explain what the words meant.

Several people I know have severe dyslexia. One is on welfare for it; the other is a brilliant doctor who gets books for the blind from the library so he can enjoy adventure books in his spare time like anybody else.

That’s one side of the coin. The other side is a friend who could go through ten romance novels a day and still take good care of her husband, children, and home. She ended up going to adult classes to get her college degree and supporting her children when her husband left them.

I know a couple of people who have turned reading into a fine art. One is Albert, a tall brown fellow about ten years old who is a wonderful natural athlete, especially as a basketball player. The first time I heard Albert read aloud in Sunday school I was thrilled and amazed. He had inflection; depth, tone, rhythm. I asked whether they  recognize his skills at school, and he confirmed that they do. He reads the announcements over the intercom every morning. When asked, his mother said she had read to him with those same embellishments since he was a baby and he had picked it up from there.

The other artistic reader who was an English teacher, taught her children to read before they went to school. Now she is frail and cared for by a daughter and a son who is a policeman. I never have heard one word of complaint from this dear lady. She’s always telling other people how wonderful they are.

She tells me that, frequently, her daughter calls her on the phone and reads to her from Jane Austen. They just finished, “Northanger Abby.” Every night her son reads a chapter from a James Herriot novel. “I get a bedtime story,” she says, happily.

Does that thrill you as much it does me? I’m not going to say reading aloud is a lost art. Obviously, it is not and someday perhaps someone will read to me in just that way, but for now, I’m thoroughly enjoying my IPod, http://www.audible.com, and my all time favorite author whose books are recorded for a new generation: D. E. Stevenson.

The best book to read, aloud or silently is, of course, the Bible, which can change your life for the better forever.

Matthew 4:4

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

*kids.

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Trade-Off

7 Mar

I think I may have discovered a hidden treasure. While visiting with a friend’s mom we began discussing books and this lead to writing which led to the discovery that she has been writing for years. Of course I pounced at the chance to have her as a guest on our blog. So today I am sharing with you  Louise Gibson, a friend and poet who has a delightful sense of humor Onisha

 

 

 

Trade Off

 

Pigeons are not on my list of favorite creatures

 

They destroy my peace of mind.

 

The feeder in my yard was dwarfed

 

By pigeons of every kind.

 

 

They came each day and flapped their wings

 

As they fought for a position.

 

The feeder was too small, you see,

 

Which affected their disposition.

 

 

 

My patio used to be a place

 

Of quietness and contentment

 

Until the pigeons came in droves

 

And filled me with resentment.

 

 

 

“Lord” I cried, “I need your help

 

I cannot stand their spats.”

 

The Lord obliged, to my chagrin

 

And sent instead eight cats.

 

 

 

No squirrels, no birds, they fled in fear-

 

The cats you see, do domineer.

 

Now you find no pigeons on Chipola

 

God sent them all to Lake Eola!

 

 

 

English: A flock of domestic Rock Pigeons (Col...

Downtown Orlando at Sunrise

Downtown Orlando at Sunrise (Photo credit: camflan)

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JANET AND THE OPTOMETRIST

6 Jan

SUNDAY MEMORIES

 Judy Wills

Judy

                                                     

We have always felt that it was most important for us to teach our girls to read.  After all, if you can’t read, you can’t do math problems.  It has been such an important part of our lives and training that both our girls were able to read while still in pre-kindergarten.

 Back in the 1970’s, the big method for teaching children to read was phonetically – sound out the letters of the word and you will be able to make the word your own.  That may still be a method of teaching children to read – I don’t know.

Because Fred and I both wear glasses/contact lenses, we were concerned that our girls might need eye correction fairly early in their lives.  So we had them tested by the AF Base’s optometrist upon several occasions.

Our youngest daughter, Janet, was in second grade, when we had her tested at one point in time.  The technician started with the smallest “line” to read.  No response from Janet.  He moved it up to the next line – no response.  Wringing of hands by Janet at this point.  He moved it up another line – no response.  Severe wringing of hands by Janet.  But no response.

 

EYE CHART

 

Finally, Fred leaned toward her and said – “it doesn’t make a word.”  She had been trying to phonetically make those letters into a word – and she couldn’t do it!  Well – I doubt if WE could have made it into a word, either!

The technician had told her to “read” the line, and that was exactly what she was trying to do – read that line of letters!

She did learn to read – and she didn’t need too much eye correction.  Thank goodness!

 

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Take Time to Read the Label

11 Jul

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Reading is not my favorite thing to do.  I have been told that my word dyslexia is what causes words to get jumbled up as I read and sometimes words even drop out or are added to what I see.  This makes for some interesting if not frustrating situations.

Take for instance the last time I went to the store to pick up a few things for my wife.  She had given me a list of things she needed which included four cans of four different soups.  Years ago, this would not have been much of a problem for me as each soup had only one label.  All I had to do was read the label correctly.

Today it’s a little more complicated than that.  When I looked on the soup shelf for a can of Cream of Celery soup, there was green label “Low Sodium”, green label “Heart Healthy” plain label “98% Fat Free”, plain label “Reduced Fat” and blue label “great for Cooking” – I think that was all.  Anyway, you get the picture.  Now, we were raised on the real thing, when it comes to soup, and my wife still wants the real thing for all her cooking.  Well, as you might imagine, I spent some time looking through all those different labels to find the real thing for each of the four types of soup she wanted.  I even had to take some items out of my basket and put them back on the shelf after I discovered I had picked up another wrong-labeled item.

When I got home, I was pleased to see that I had managed to get all the right kinds of soup on the list.  But then, my wife asked me, “Is this stick the only type of Benadryl they had?” I had spent a lot of time looking over the different types of Anti-Itch products, reading and comparing the ingredients and thought I had the right thing.  But, right there, in big black letters was the word “Stick” not “Cream “on the front of the box.  I guess I had been so involved in checking the ingredients that my brain looked right over the obvious.  Fortunately I had also bought another brand of anti-itch product that just happened to be “cream” for my medicine cabinet, so I just traded with her.

Romans 8:28

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