My Name was Supposed to be Elizabeth Ann

I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions, but I do like the idea of resets and fresh starts. In that spirit, I’m trying something a little different this year, sharing not only stories about books that matter to me, but those that matter to my reader friends, an occasional series I’m calling BOOKS THAT MATTER AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM. 

Why this, now?

Three reasons.

Actually, four.

More on that, later.

First, what IS a book that matters? 

Answers to that question are as varied as my fellow bibliophiles. To me, it’s a book that STICKS, a book that STAYS IN MY HEART. It REWIRES MY BRAIN, helps me to MORE FULLY UNDERSTAND myself and my world. It SHIFTS MY PERSPECTIVE, maybe slightly but always measurably, enabling me to EVOLVE and ACT. CREATE, rather than destroy.

They are the books that I return to, the ones I keep on my physical and mental bookshelves. Reading their titles is a way to read me.

I recently enjoyed a brief conversation about such topics with one of my Facebook friends and former students, Erika Green, who had commented on one of my posts depicting a donation I’d made to a Little Free Library. An avid reader–she challenged herself to read fifty books last year and read 148!!!–Erika rarely keeps her books, but made an exception for one we’d both enjoyed, The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. She explained, ‘I don’t keep many of my books anymore unless I KNOW I’m going to re-read them, [and that book] went immediately on the keep shelf. My 8 and 11-year-olds asked me what it was about and want me to read it to them, too.’ I smiled and gave her a thumbs up, recalling similar happy memories with my own (now grown) children.

So that’s reason one for this, now. I am nourished not only by books themselves, but also by connections with my reader friends, and I want to celebrate and share that communion. Sadly, too many of us have forgotten how to talk to strangers. We demonize difference. We define those who don’t share our viewpoints as our enemies, deserving scorn and in extreme cases, annihilation.

That’s reason two. A lifetime of reading and a thirty-one year career in education have demonstrated over and over and over again the power of story to forge connections among former strangers. And by story, I don’t mean only fiction. I mean all stories, regardless of genre. Essays, of course. Even poetry and plays. That awareness echoes in the mission statement of StoryCorps, an independent non-profit that actively curates Americans’ lived stories rather than censors them because its founders are ‘committed to the idea that everyone has an important story to tell and that everyone’s story matters.’

That’s reason three, some of which I discussed in my October post. I am deeply troubled by the steady assault on libraries and schools and the false claims that books are somehow being used to weaponize and corrupt impressionable minds. I want to participate in that conversation by introducing you to some of the best people I know, fellow bibliophiles.  

Beginning in March, you’ll hear from members of my writing community and reading groups, from my former colleagues and students. They’ll share their definitions of books that matter, as well as personal stories about lives enriched by reading, by their relationships with the transformative worlds of story. And of course they’ll share titles of specific books that matter to them, though–spoiler alert–our lists rarely synchronize.

That’s part of the fun, I think, and I hope you’ll join us.

You’ll recall I mentioned four reasons.

Here, right now, is my most important one, and the person to whom I’m dedicating this series:

In the above photograph, our mother reads Twas the Night Before Christmas to my siblings and me. That’s ten-year-old me on the hearth beside my younger brother and reading over Mom’s shoulder. My mother Helen and I are close but not confidantes. We are very different people with very different personalities and preferences, habits and histories. Yet books are our native language, allowing us to communicate when life, work, and geography have diverged our paths. She is my first teacher, my first reader, and my life would have been very different had she not nourished and encouraged my bookworm tendencies.

As I write, she lies in a Florida hospital, where she’s been since a few days before Christmas, the fourth hospitalization in 2023, and now the first of 2024. Each stay has become increasingly lengthy, increasingly difficult, and now she can neither see to read nor concentrate on audiobooks. I’ve offered to read to her over the phone, from my home in Pennsylvania, but each time she’s refused. Maybe next time, she said, she’ll be up for it. Now, however, she can’t answer her phone. She’s forgotten how it works, forgotten how to speak.

Much of the impetus for embarking on this series comes from witnessing her decline. I’m flying to see her Wednesday. I hope I make it there on time.

Because I know the ending to her story, and I am not yet ready to read it.

But someday I will honor it–honor her–by sharing it.