Reading While Abroad

 

 

There is something to be said for packing light, but I’m not sure I know exactly what that is, because we brought two luggages full of books. Well, not totally full of books—we squeezed underwear and t-shirts around the edges, we wouldn’t want the books to get damaged in transit or anything. Instead of researching and planning our itinerary, I…researched and planned out the purchase of an additional luggage (“we need it, Jon. You don’t want your kids to grow up illiterate, right??”).

 

A few people have asked if it wouldn’t be lighter to use an ereader like a Kindle or a Kobo, and I think it’s not so much a rhetorical question as it is asking why we’re not using ereaders. I don’t know! Am I against all technology? Not quite. Do I love the idea of Caleb with an ereader in his hand? Definitely not. But also…

 

Where’s the fun in that? I’m rubbing my hands together in delight, a gremlin hoarding up treasures, stocking up my luggage with that most precious of commodities. We have some really good stuff packed in there (the first few books from A Wrinkle in Time, the Golden Compass series, A Letter for the King, The Search for Wondla, Amari and the Night Brothers, Neil Gaiman)! I’m still reading aloud to them before bed, but also on the subway, on airplanes, on long train rides between cities, and also when we’re waiting for food at a restaurant, or while we’re taking a snack break at the park.

 

Some things I was saving just for this trip, some things we started before we left to make sure they were stories and characters we wanted to commit to, since there’s no returning them to the library until we’ve come home, and other things the kids packed for themselves.

 

It was fun to watch and advise as Caleb and Naomi sorted out their own reading list, putting books on hold from the library, stacking up piles. Thinking ahead to how hard it might be to find new books (in English) that they’d love, in Japan and Taiwan, should the need arise, they had to think about books that they hadn’t yet read but knew would be good, so we have lots of the remaining titles in a series.

 

I think there’s still some magic in holding a book in the hand, in going to the library to see if our books have arrived, in seeing the stack of them with eyes glinting and wide. It’s not the same story when the witch’s ereader is glitching as she’s trying to add frog powder to her cauldron around the fire, or Harry Potter’s backpack full of not textbooks and scrolls, but a nifty ipad. There’s definitely some voodoo magic in screens also, but the magic of the pages and paper, the creased covers, the wrinkled paper from the rain, the crack of the spine, a book that looks like you’ve journeyed inside of it, is of the purest sort.

 

Maybe one day Caleb will choose to get an e-reader (and Naomi, and Junia). We’re not quite there yet, so for now we will be wheeling our luggage of books around.

 

 

 

 

I’m going to leave you with this unexpected gem:

 

”A present!” Penelope could hardly believe it. But it was true. Even on their modest incomes, the servants had managed to pool together enough money to buy Penelope an absolutely spectacular gift. It was a new type of pen called a “fountain pen,” which could write line after line without having to be dipped into the inkwell.

 

The book is the fourth in the series The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, which we had started some time ago in Canada—I think I recall snow falling around us when we started book 1. I’m not a huge, huge fan of this series, but the kids find it hilarious (too hilarious, sometimes). It’s about three kids who were raised by wolves, which tells you …something about why they like it so much.

 

It’s an interesting paradox for the kids: when we’re at home, we often read to find new countries and worlds and times to adventure through, and when we’re far from it, it’s nice to have something comfortable to remind us of where we come from.