Blogger: Rachel Kent
In honor of Father’s Day, I’d like to write about the dads in my life. 🙂
I am blessed to have a wonderful father who enjoys reading. My brothers and I got him a Kindle for his birthday about 4 years ago and whenever he has a spare moment you can find him sitting on the couch with his Kindle reading a new book or re-reading a favorite.
He really enjoys The Lord of the Rings books and The Wheel of Time series and I know a more recent favorite is Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. He consumes books and I’m sure he has many more favorites.
When I was a child, he would take time to read to me. He’d read a chapter or two each night and then send me off to bed and I’d know he was going to keep reading the book after I went to sleep. It would drive me crazy that he would find out what would happen next first and I’d have to wait. He couldn’t help himself because he’d get so into whatever story we were enjoying together. He did always pretend to be surprised with each plot twist. 🙂
He has also read a few of the books I’ve represented even though I don’t represent many in his preferred genres–at least not yet. He told me he cried when he read A Bump in Life: True Stories of Hope & Courage During An Unplanned Pregnancy by Amy Ford and he really enjoyed Heartless by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. He read them to show his love and support of me.
My husband also enjoys reading to our daughter. His current favorite book to read to her is called Flip and Flop by Dawn Apperley. The little penguins and some polar bear friends play a game called Boomba. It involves yelling “boomba” while plopping on their bottoms in the snow. My husband and daughter enjoy this game very much and play on our bed. 🙂 It’s so cute to watch them enjoy books together. Here they are reading together for the first time (she is 4 days old):
Does/did your father enjoy reading?
Did/Do you like to read books with your children? What is a current or all-time favorite?
Happy Father’s Day! Enjoy celebrating the dads in your life this weekend!
My childhood isn’t a place I’m even remotely inclined to visit in memory, but I DO read to my dogs. Currently we’re reading Martin Middlebrook’s “Arnhem 1944 – The Airborne Battle”. (It’s a study of the British part of Operation Market-Garden, made famous by Cornelius Ryan as “A Bridge Too Far”. Martin Middlebrook is now retired, but he was the doyen of British military historians, and a very engaging writer.)
* They do listen. They cock their heads at appropriate times, when there’s a bit of suspense in the air. It’s probably the way I’m reading it, but it’s fun to think they understand.
*We also watch movies together, and Sylvia (the dog pictured on my blog, and one of my service dogs) has a favourite – “Saving Private Ryan”. She knows the jewel case on sight, and will pull it from the shelf when she wants me to put it in the player. She loves Tom Hanks, and positively loathes anyone in a German uniform…when the Germans are on-screen for any time, she’ll leap at the television, barking and growling.
What fun! I never considered reading to Benny. Perhaps I should start him with Peter Cottontail or Uncle Wiggily. Clearly, his preferences run towards rabbits.
How about Watership Down?
It’s really sweet that your dogs enjoy that. So much smarter than we give them credit for most of the time. 🙂 I wonder if my mini schnauzer, Luna, would enjoy some Christian romance. I should try my m-script on her.
Ask him the name of his sneaky dog …
As for Watership Down, well this I know that “Bright Eyes” by Art Garfunkel is not just the most haunting melody I know, it is also my favorite. “How can the light that burned so brightly, suddenly burn so pale … “
Amazing that she can pick up on the uniforms and everything! Dogs are so complex.
My father’s formal education ended with 8th grade, but he was self-educated beyond that. He read my high school textbooks. I remember interrupting him, “Daddy, I need my chemistry book to do my homework.”
What a sweet memory….your dad sounds determined! 🙂
Your dad is a lifelong learner like my dad! He went into the Air Force after high school and didn’t go to college, yet he has the best vocabulary of anyone I know and I defy someone to tell who of my parents went to college and who didn’t. I inherited my love of learning from him and proud of it.
What a sweet memory! 🙂
My father does enjoy reading, but it’s rare to catch him with a book in hand. Magazines, the newspaper, and online articles are his preference. He did recently read “Broken” by Laura Hillenbrand, however, and he enjoyed it so much he was trying to retell certain events in the story to me. I appreciated his enthusiasm and his insentience that, “I’m not saying it right, you just need to read the book.”
Thank you for sharing, Rachel. I would have gone crazy also if I knew someone was getting to read more of a good book after I had to go to bed. 🙂
He reads to my nephew a lot now and does the same thing to him!
I don’t remember my dad reading children’s books to me. But I remember him reading devotionals to us kids. He worked nights, and that just made everything hard. But he reads everything I write today, over and over. And he acts so proud.
With my girls … loved reading to them. Dr. Suess … Oh, the wonderful things Mr. Brown can do. He can sound like a cow. He can go “moo moo” … Beatrix Potter. Oh, don’t get me started. 🙂
So sweet. Can’t go wrong with Dr. Suess 🙂
I didn’t have a dad to read to me until I was 12. And by then, well, I could sorta read to myself.
When he married my mom and moved us all into a real house, I would often find him in the armchair by the front window, reading his Bible. Sometimes the English one, sometimes the Arabic one.
I’d find him there late at night, or on a weekend afternoon.
That spoke highly of the kind of man is was.
When my daughter was little, he’d read to her in that chair and tell her all kinds of things. He’d sing her Arabic nursery rhymes, and make me learn them too. I can still sing one in particular.
Unfortunately, long after my kids had learned that song, my Auntie had to tell him he’d gotten the words all wrong. He was annoyed that *we* never told him he had them wrong.
We, who only know a few words in Arabic. Correcting an ancient Arabic nursery rhyme. That we didn’t have a clue what it meant, only that it was about making dough…riiiiiiiight.
38 years later, my dad still reads in that same chair, but by a different window. And he still can be found with a worn out Bible on his lap.
My husband was a great one for reading to our kids, but got in the most trouble for supplementing the content of Big Joe’s Trailer Truck. Up until she could talk, John would read to our Katie about how poor Big Joe got caught up in the drug trade and trafficked drugs up from South America.
Once she started saying things like “border agent” and “night vision goggles”, Big Joe went back to driving loads of veggies.
wow, what a witness …
I love that story about your husband. I’ll bet he kept the kids on their toes when they were little.
Oh, that’s funny, Jennifer. I’ve always heard that you need to instill everything you can into your children before they are five. 🙂 And I laughed so hard at “Big Joe” … we just got the dog, that is bent on making us his home, a dog bed that says “Big Joe.” 🙂 He won’t even use it. Ugh. 🙂
My father didn’t read children’s books, but I remember snuggling up against him on the brown sofa as he read The Wall Street Journal. We had a game where he would find the longest word on the page and I would get to read it to him, slowly pronouncing all the syllables until I could say the word.
We played until he got tired (four words), and then off I went to bed.
The hi-fi radio sat on a shelf beside the sofa and he listened to classical music in the evenings while he read enormous nonfiction books. The heating vent beside the shelf connected to the heating vent just above my bed in my room.
It was always such a comfort to lie in the dark and listen to the radio playing sweeping works of the classical canon: the music meant my traveling salesman father was home and we were secure.
I read a lot like my dad now, with classical music playing on the radio. Some Beethoven always takes me back to that childhood bed, safely tucked away with multi-syllabic words whispering and my own stories spinning through my brain.
No wonder I don’t sleep well even now . . .
Happy the child who has a parent who reads–father or mother alike!
Thanks for the memory.
What a great memory to have, Michelle!
Sweet, Michelle. 🙂
My father’s a reader too, and he’s always pointed me toward fascinating books that stretch me – he still does this! And some of my happiest moments as a young mom were watching my husband read with our children. They gravitated toward the sillier books 🙂
I recall my father reading Louis L’Amour books. And, though we’ve made fun of him on occasion, he also has been seen with a Harlequin-style romance novel. I guess you could say that completely describes my dad…a man’s man on the outside, tough and rugged…but a real softy/romantic on the inside. My husband is a wonderful reader with our daughter. In fact, I’ve often had to go in at bedtime and say, “Okay, guys, that’s enough…it’s late!” 🙂
Yes, and now that my girls are teens, they are like me … if you start a good book, you just can’t put it down.
I have so much in common. I loved reading to my boys and I still enjoy them in every way. I wasn’t close to my Dad until, after resisting our faith for some 30 years he capitulated – after my mom died. He and I, more so than any of my siblings, put everything right in the living years – and now I miss him more than my mom. So thanks for the reminder Rachel – I will remember him on Sunday, although I suspect he and her are rather preoccupied. I am so glad he gave me such great material for a noble eulogy.
🙂 Thank you for sharing with us, Peter! Sounds like your boys were blessed by you–and still are!
Rachel, in this world of mass customization and remote-touch service, I firmly believe that what will set true service firms apart, is human touch. I know of a few blog sites that remain aloof and unresponsive to the blog comments that their posts elicit, but I salute you for taking the human risk to engage. It is, in my opinion, the missing “glue” in far too many blog sites. It is risky, but so is life – and engaging is life. Thanks.
My dad was a Popular Mechanics reader when he was working, since he didn’t have time to commute a long way so we could grow up in a village rather than the city. Once he retired, he went through the Louis L’Amour series and then the Tony Hillerman books. Now he reads a lot, whether learning something new from the internet or reading Gutenburg ebooks and listening to Librivox audiobooks. The “old time” books have given us a common ground to talk books as a lot of them are during WWII and he remembers some of the culture from then.
It’s nice to have common ground. Very sweet, Kathleen.
My dad read bedtime stories to my brother and me when we were little, but he died when I was only six years old. My grandfather moved in with us so my mother could get a job. He didn’t read to us, but he told us lots of stories about growing up in the 1800s and we sang old gold rush and Steven Foster songs with him while he played the banjo.
Years ago I read about a study seeking to find the best method for teaching reading. The scientists interviewed the highest functioning students from the top universities in America. To their surprise they discovered the only thing those students had in common was that their parents had read to them all the time when they were little kids.
Oh, how I would love to hear those stories your grandfather told you! Thank you for sharing that memory
Wonderful! It’s never too soon to start reading to your children.
My dad, Dannie K. Davis, introduced me and other family members to the classics and nurtured our love for them. He also read about a wide range of topics. I still remember our discussion on “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand that I read for a high-school assignment. Years later, my son and nephew still remember Dad quoting Shakespeare when they helped him irrigate alfalfa fields. Books filled shelves that covered the interior walls of most of the rooms in Dad’s house. I could borrow any I wanted provided I took care of them and returned them to him. The last two books he lent me and we discussed were “1776” by David McCullough and “The First Salute” by Barbara Tuchman. Dad passed away several years ago, but his influence still remains in how I select books to read, how I see the world, and how I live my life.
My stepdad, Dannie K. Davis, encouraged me and other family members to read the classics and he nurtured our love for them. Dad also read about a wide range of topics. I still remember our discussion on “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand that I read for a high-school assignment. Years later, my son and nephew still remember Dad quoting Shakespeare when they helped him irrigate alfalfa fields. Books filled shelves that covered the interior walls of most of the rooms in Dad’s house. I could borrow any I wanted provided I took care of them and returned them to him. The last two books he lent me and we discussed were “1776” by David McCullough and “The First Salute” by Barbara Tuchman. Dad passed away several years ago, but his influence still remains in how I select books to read, how I see the world, and how I live my life.
My dad loves to learn so reads nonfiction. When he loans me a book, there’s usually a business card in it from an acquaintance. It’s placed where he left off. He seems to rarely finish a book though. The Thorn in Your Flesh by RT Kendell is the last book I read from him. Dad is also an avid newspaper reader and set a good example of looking up words in the dictionary. I think that’s unique for a farmer with only a high school diploma and some mechanical training. I’ve given him two devotionals that he loves. About 10 years ago after Mom died, I gave him Daily in Christ by Neil T. Anderson and then for his 90th birthday last Christmas Eve, I gave him Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. He’ll call me up sometimes just to discuss what it said that day, and once in awhile, he’ll try to stump me with what a word means or better yet, ask me how to spell something. Maybe Dad’s love of language and learning is why I became an English teacher. Thanks for making us reflect on our dads and their reading habits.
How’s this for a fatherly bedtime story – the great John Lennox, Oxford mathematician and Christian apologist, was given the “Communist Manifesto” by his Dad, at age 13. “Why” he asked, “So you can also understand why others believe what they believe”. Today that old man is one of the most humble, charming champions for Christ who so ably takes on those he researched in his youth, yet without ever offending the gospel. I don’t think he could offend a fly, but the fly will leave knowing that he is a fly and that Lennox is a Christian.
Although my mom read to us more often at night, my dad read too. But he was the storyteller in our family. He would invent stories when we were board or sick or driving a long ways in the car. He would tell us stories about himself as a little boy or just make up something in which my brother and I were the hero and heroine. He was a master story teller and it showed up in his sermons and later when he worked at a small Bible Camp. I even have one tape of him telling a story to my brother and I. Priceless.
My dad is not a reader at all, but I do have fond memories of my maternal grandfather, Opa Bergmann, reading to us grandkids. He would take us downstairs or into the sun room he and Oma called the ‘solarium’ and read us wonderful stories and devotions about world missions. He was a retired school teacher and also had a vast store of memorized poetry which he often recited.
I read multiple times a day with my girls now. The oldest is 3 and lover animals, so we do a lot of Jim Arnosky, Bill Martin Jr, and Eric Carle. Her current favorite now though us Where the Wild Things Are, as she is very definitely a wild thing.
What a precious post, Rachel! I loved reading about your dad and how your husband now reads to your daughter…precious.
Your post brought back memories of my dad reading to us when my sister and I were younger. He’s never been a big reader himself, though he’ll sometimes read health or World War II books, but on Sunday evenings for much of my growing up, he would read aloud to our family–usually a well-written nonfiction story like God’s Smuggler, The Hiding Place, or The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. But we got him to read a little fiction in later years too…Christy by Catherine Marshall and The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis. Such precious memories…calling them back to mind brought tears to my eyes. Thank you and Happy Father’s Day to the dads in your life!
My daddy read Little Golden Books to my brother and me during the early 1950s. Daddy had a big green upholstered rocking chair with an ottoman. My brother would sit on one arm of the chair and I’d sit on the other as Daddy read a big stack of our favorite books. My sons are grown now, but I read them books from the moment I knew I was pregnant. And, I’m now the granny to a 5 month-old, whose mom is a librarian and a book artist (makes paper, prints with a printing press, binds and makes the covers!). So, yes, reading is going down through the generations in my family!