Guinevere De La Mare - Id Rather Be Reading: A Library of Art for Book Lovers (Gifts for Book Lovers, Gifts for Librarians, Book Club Gift)

for my grandmothers,

Doris & Patricia,

who loved to read.
thank you for teaching me that
books are magic.

Introduction and compilation copyright 2017 by Guinevere de la Mare.
A Slow Books Manifesto copyright 2012 by Maura Kelly.
Cheating copyright 2013 by Ann Patchett.
13 Tips for Getting More Reading Done copyright 2014 by Gretchen Rubin.

All images copyright by the individual artists.
constitute a continuation of the copyright page.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

De la Mare, Guinevere, 1976- | Kelly, Maura, 1974- | Rubin, Gretchen.| Patchett, Ann.

Id rather be reading : a library of art for book lovers / by Guinevere de la Mare ; with essays by Maura Kelly, Gretchen Rubin, and Ann Patchett.

San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 2017.
LCCN 2016051057
ISBN 9781452155111 (hc)
ISBN 9781452158594 (epub, mobi)
LCSH: Books and readingMiscellanea.
LCC Z1003 .I225 2017 | DDC 028/.9dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016051057

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the autobiography of a bookworm

By Guinevere de la Mare

Read any essay about the love of books and the author will undoubtedly mention an obsession with reading born in early childhood. My story starts with a twist. I had no interest in learning to read. When it came time to begin the process of decoding diphthongs and navigating the minefield of is before es except after cs, I said, No thanks.

My kindergarten class was divided into small groups of four or five students, and I became ringleader of my group, convincing the other members that we had far better things to do than waste our time on those pesky lined work sheets. There were block towers to build! Dress-up games to be played! Reading was for suckers.

My teacher, Mrs. Schmidt, was a smart lady. She cocked an eyebrow and then wisely let me lead this rebellion unfettered. Suit yourselves, she told us. But there would be no block building or dress-up corner privileges. We could sit quietly while the rest of the class learned to read. Fair enough. I was too busy basking in my newfound power to consider the consequences.

At first, the other kids in the classthose who hadnt been brave enough to stand up to Big Literacywere envious of the freedom that allowed us to doodle at our desks during reading time. But after a few days, something began to shift. We began to get bored. And all the other kids started to be able to do something we couldnt. They were looking at letters but seeing words. Suddenly they had a superpower, and we didnt. My days of academic protest were over.

The story has become family lore. Ive heard it retold by my mother countless times, and truthfully, I have no memory of a time when I couldnt read. Looking back, Ive got to hand it to Mrs. Schmidt. My grandmother was the director of the schooland her boss. I can only imagine the conversation at the staff meeting that particular week. Well, Doris, I picture my teacher reporting, your granddaughter has informed us that she wont be learning how to read. Im sure they had a good laugh.

My grandmother was born on a chicken farm in Kansas and graduated from UCLA. In 1949, as a young mother of two, she set sail for Honolulu. My grandfather had been hired to be the chaplain at Punahou School, and together they raised five children in Hawaii. When her youngest started preschool, she began teaching. My grandfather died in 1974, two years before I was born. By then, my grandmother had been promoted to director of Central Union Preschool, where she worked until retirement.

I owe my love of reading to my grandmother. The preschool was an extension of her, and I grew up surrounded by books. My earliest memory is of being carried as a three-year-old from her office to my classroom. My siblings, cousins, and I all attended her school, and we spent countless hours at her house, curled up with books on the pnee (a basket-shaped Hawaiian daybed). Five of my cousins grew up on the mainland, but reading was so important to Gramsie (as we called her) that she would record cassette tapes for each of them, reading aloud the books she sent each birthday.

In our family, books were treasured gifts that were exchanged on every holiday. I still have a shelfful of Golden Books, each one inscribed with the date and occasion: Christmas 1977, from my mother; Valentines Day 1978, from my father; Easter 1982, from my sister. As a five-year-old, I probably couldnt have imagined a world where there wouldnt be someone at hand just waiting for the chance to read to me. Why bother learning to do it alone? Where was the fun in that?

Gramsie died a few years ago, shortly after my son was born. She was able to meet him once, and I have a cherished photograph of her beaming down at his three-month-old face. I still miss her, but I know just where to find her when Im feeling down. My first copy of Good-night Moon is tattereda piece of clear packing tape runs down the spine, holding it togetherbut inside, there is magic. When I open the cover, my grandmothers handwriting is waiting for me. It is her voice I hear when I reread my favorite books from childhood.

By the time I was ten, I was a binge reader. I loved series best, when one book picked up where the previous one left off. Beatrix Potter, Curious George, and the Berenstain Bears led to Beverly Cleary, C. S. Lewis, and Madeleine LEngle. By the time I finished the Little House books, I was ready for Anne of Green Gables. Anne Shirley was seventy-five years old by the time L. M. Montgomery retired her, and I was still heartbroken when the series ended. Then came the Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High. It was like cheap boxed wine for a closet alcoholic. You could keep topping off the glass and no one would see the empty bottles stacking up. Reading was good for you; it didnt matter if the writing was crap. Just one more chapter. I can stop anytime.

If one grandmother got me hooked on reading, it was the other who staged an intervention. Grandma Harrison was born and raised on the Upper East Side of New York City. Her mother was a stage actress who had performed in Paris, London, and New York before she married. Her father was a prominent lawyer for the Southern Pacific Railroad. As the only child of two only children, she had a glamorous but lonely childhood. In the (sadly unfinished) memoirs she wrote at the end of her life, she vividly recalls the moment in school when she learned to read: