everybody read

Reading is extremely important to me but I hadn’t noticed the extent to which reading has been a cornerstone of my entire life until I thought about it for an assignment. It all began with some star bellied Sneetches who had “bellies with stars” and some plain bellied Sneetches who had “none upon thars.” My mother must have read Dr. Seuss’s Sneetches and Other Stories to me a million times when I was very young because I had it memorized before I could actually read the words.

These stories and their lessons are an integral part of my moral composition.

From The Sneetches and Other Stories I learned not to judge others by their appearances or differences; I learned that stubbornness can keep you stuck in one place while the whole world goes on around you; I learned that sometimes you don’t do the right thing and now it’s just too late; I learned not to fear something just because I might not understand it completely. I don’t know who I would be today if my ethics weren’t firmly grounded in the teachings of Sneetches, but I perhaps wouldn’t have grown up to be such an ardent advocate for the lives and rights of indigenous people around the globe.

I also loved the music of Dr. Seuss. His books incited a love for words, lyricism, literature, and, ultimately, poetry in all its incarnations. I have read that Dylan Thomas and W. H. Auden cite Edward Lear and nursery rhymes as their first poetic influences so I don’t feel so ashamed of admitting to my totally un-academic primary influence at this point. Besides, the Sneetches led to Winnie-the-pooh, which led to E. B. White (and consequently, as far as moral composition goes, vegetarianism), which eventually led to Jack London, Herman Melville, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and D. H. Lawrence, to name a few influential favorites.

But more than a moral compass and few fancy literary references, reading gave me worlds to explore, ideas to ponder, opinions to disagree with, new ways to see reality, and sanctuary. I didn’t grow up with television or friends; I grew up with books and what I found in them became everything to me. I still count the tubby bear with very little brain as one of my oldest and dearest friends and I return to visit frequently. I truly am what I read.

In my experience, reading has always been a solitary endeavor. Prior to my introduction to the Everybody Reads program, I had not considered the widespread implications of a group of people reading and discussing the same book outside of academe. It seems to me now that this particular project has the potential to connect individuals in a community in profound ways. Most fundamentally, if only for a brief time, reading the same book gives all kinds of different people something in common. Even if ideas and opinions about the book differ, an incredibly diverse population may be linked through an artistic medium.

Suddenly, the businesswoman has something in common with the server who is delivering the wine. And the city commissioner has something in common with me. It seems a venerable platform for inciting communication across social boundaries.

I am interested in the different ways to communicate a message to a diverse population, but I am especially drawn to the mission of Everybody Reads because of the message of next year's chosen book A Long Way Gone. I feel a personal attachment to the plight of Ishmael Beah because I’ve had a close friend who was a Sudanese war refugee. Ojulu and I were coworkers in a commercial greenhouse and we spent long, extremely hot hours together doing difficult labor, learning to communicate, planting seeds, trading stories, laughing, and we even once prayed for a crop of canna lilies that we accidentally planted upside down.

Ojulu taught me to suspend my preconditioned notions of the way the world works, and I tried to teach him how to drive. He had a bullet wound in his ear and scars the size and shape of small pebbles all over the side of his head from shrapnel. Ojulu was fluent in five languages, and rapidly learning English, and had dreams of becoming a doctor. Still, customers would walk in to the greenhouse and shout at him as if he were deaf, dumb, or no more a person than the shrubbery they were shopping for.

I know that what Ojulu suffered in his life is unimaginable. I know that he continues to suffer from the war and he always will. Witnessing the cruel treatment he endured in the place that was supposed to offer safety and relief from the cruelty of his homeland was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I have hope that Ishmael’s story may enlighten a public, provoke empathy, and instill compassion so that others like him will be safe here and offered the respect and solace that they deserve so much.

Maybe the community reading of A Long Way Gone will change some people’s minds and attitudes. Maybe it will cause one person to think before he or she assumes something about a person’s life based on the color of their skin. Maybe communication can create change.

Maybe the world would be a better place if everybody read The Sneetches.