The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Alice Ozma's memoir, The Reading Promise, had my attention from just the brief snyopis I happened upon months ago. Alice's father, an elementary school librarian (which helps explain how the reading promise was even possible) and Alice decide to challenge themselves to read each night for 100 consecutive days. Once the hundred day challenge is complete, Alice and her dad decide to take it a step further and try to read for 1,000 nights without a break. And, upon completing that challenge, the two continue The Streak (as it is called) until Alice leaves for college nine years later.
While I wish that more of this book would have been about the books that were read, it is really more a memoir of Alice's childhood and a tribute to reading aloud and its importance. Alice's father, Jim Brozina, writes a forward for his daughter full bits I flagged to read and re-read later.

I do read to my daughters each night, yet I will admit that I have skipped some nights because it is too late when we get home from something, or someone is sick, or (and this I feel bad about) we have had some behavior issues and taking bedtime reading away really hits 'em where it hurts. I have also not practiced my reading ahead of time which makes me feel like a slacker compared to Brozina who read ahead each night before reading aloud to Alice.

While this book is a memoir, I would also consider it a tribute to Jim Brozina and his dedication to his daughter. Sadly, Brozina retired before he was ready when the schools he served chose to believe that reading aloud to children was unimportant and unnecesary. Instead of igniting a passion in children for reading, Brozina was supposed to teach computers, and as this book was published, Brozina is now looking to being elected to the school board. To carry on his love of reading aloud, Brozina now visits the elderly in nursing homes and reads aloud to his captive audience.

At book's end there is a list of many of the books that were read aloud during The Streak. Ozma admits not having kept records of what was being read, so it is possible that some titles were inadvertantly omitted. I enjoyed looking through the list and getting a few ideas for my own nightly read alouds. While I need to update my list, I did start a notebook for my girls chronicling the books we read aloud together. My mother, when I told her this, didn't understand the significance of this, yet perhaps someday this list will lead to a memoir about how reading aloud impacted our family.

I loved this book, and even more than that, I loved Jim Brozina, Alice's dad, for his love of reading and his ability to instill this same passion in his own child.

"You may have tangible wealth untold; Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be -- I had a Mother who read to me." Strickland Gilliand

I have so much love for this book. As a librarian AND a parent, I know reading aloud is so important in developing a child's love of reading, but more importantly, in developing a CHILD. In an amazing feat, Alice Ozma (love the story behind the name, btw) and her dad read together every day for over 3,000 days- no exceptions. I orginally thought this book would have been about the books that they read during their "streak", but it is actually about the life that they lived during that time, and that's what makes it so enjoyable. At the end of the book there is a list of all of the books they read during the "streak", and perhaps one of my favorite things about that list is that it isn't entirely made up of the classic cannon - there are very modern books on there, including favorites of mine such as Each Little Bird That Sings.

Can't wait to buy my own copy. I'll be recommending this one to lots of friends.

Once upon a time, a little girl and her father wanted to know if they could read aloud for 100 nights in a row. When they reached that milestone, they decided to keep going. Eventually, when the little girl went to college, the nightly reading stopped after 3,218 nights.

The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma uses those nights of reading as the frame for an episodic memoir that covers life in the Bronzina household from when Ozma is in the third grade to present day.

Her father is a elementary school librarian, and his love of literature is evident the name he gave his younger daughter.

Ozma begins each chapter with a quote from a book she and her father would have read around the time of the incident that anchors the chapter: The Giver for a chapter about the death and funeral of her beloved beta fish; Charlotte's Web for a chapter about watching spiders and summer storms on a porch; Dicey's Song for a chapter about the awkward father-daughter conversations about a growing daughter.

The episodic nature of the book is, in part, the book's downfall. Ozma never spends enough time with pieces of her life that, in a different memoir, could serve as a centerpole. Her mother leaves the family, but it doesn't seem to affect Ozma and her father much other than the two of them trying to figure out what would make an acceptable Thanksgiving dinner. Her older sister pops in and out of the book but doesn't seem to be part of the family.

At times, this isn't a problem. After all, Ozma is telling the story of her relationship with her father. At others, however, the episodes rush by before their importance in Ozma's life is clear. The Reading Promise is Ozma's first published work, and the pacing shows that. You want to stop her as she's writing and encourage her to put more words on paper, to spend more time with an episode. The scenes are probably vivid in her memory, and her writing is engaging so readers want to spend more time with the scenes. Unfortunately, Ozma is on to the next one far too quickly.

One of the stronger points of the book is her writing style. In the beginning chapters, the voice is that of a younger child, capturing who Ozma was at the time. Sometimes, she can come across as precocious, one of the kids you only see in sitcoms, but by the end of the book, it's clear that Ozma was an intelligent child and, although some of the dialogue may be a fantasized version of how she spoke as a child, it fits with the picture of who the author is.

Readers expecting a close discussion of children's literature and how it affected Ozma may be disappointed. The nightly reading is just a framework for stories about growing up. What does come through is her father's love of reading and the importance both he and Ozma place on reading to children and making a place for literature in the home.

Ozma ends the book with a sudden, almost academic paragraph on the need for a commitment to reading in modern life. It feels out of place; after she had done a decent job in showing the need, she doesn't need to explain it.

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