Library News - October

Mrs. Bruno - Library
Posted on 10/09/2019
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One of the primary benefits that occurs when an adult family member regularly reads aloud to their child is the bond that is formed between them.

Memories of my childhood have been welling up recently. I was born into an Air Force family in 1961 that was frequently transferred from base to base. My family had lived on Malmstrom AFB in Montana, Randolph AFB in San Antonio, Homestead AFB in Florida, Whiteman AFB in Missouri, Indianapolis, IN during my father’s first unaccompanied tour in Vietnam and in the Philippines near Clark AFB during my Dad’s second tour in Vietnam by the time I was nine-years-old.  My father worked hard for long hours during his twelve years of active duty military service and he was gone for many TDYs.

Whiteman AFB was the one assignment that my Dad was home with us almost every night. I was 4 ½ - 6 ½ -years-old while we lived in Missouri. My father decided that “enough is enough” of my nightly pleading for yet another reading of Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. This book drove my parents bonkers, because I was an extremely picky eater and I was not learning the book’s lesson about trying new foods.

In the course of two years, my Dad read aloud The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne, and The Best-Loved Poems of James Whitcomb Riley. My father was proud of his Indiana heritage and taught me that James Whitcomb Riley was the Hoosier Poet. I could count on Dad reading to me 20-30 minutes right before bedtime an average of four times a week. He began by giving a quick review of what he had previously read and then the read aloud would continue. He gave each book to me after I had heard it and I still have each of them in my home library.

My father served in Vietnam as a navigator for C-130s after his tour at Whiteman AFB and he never read aloud to me again. However, those two years remain etched in my memory as a bond between me and my Dad.