When I was a child, reading did not come easily to me.
But books were everywhere.
My parents both loved to read, and they made books part of our family life. They took us to
bookstores, where I could wander among the shelves and feel the quiet excitement of being
surrounded by so many worlds waiting to be discovered.
My father was especially good at making stories come alive.
He would tell us about his adventures growing up on a farm in New Jersey and working at his
father’s fruit and vegetable market in Hoboken. He loved stories—not just the ones he read, but
the ones he carried with him from his own childhood.
I also remember what happened when my father found a book that captured his imagination.
He might settle into his chair with a new biography of a great man, a book about the history of
the Roman Empire, or a story about the Egyptian kings and the pyramids. For hours, he would
become completely absorbed.
Every once in a while, he would look up from his book and tell me one of the fascinating things
he had just discovered.
I didn’t always understand the details.
But I understood something much more important.
I could see that reading brought him joy.
My mother created a different kind of relationship with books. She was an artist with a strong
sense of beauty and aesthetics, and our coffee table often became its own little gallery of
ideas—books about the stars and the sky, art, and artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da
Vinci. I especially enjoyed opening to Impressionist painters when my imagination would wild
with the colorful brush stokes.
Our home wasn’t simply filled with books.
It was filled with curiosity.
Looking back, I realize that my parents were teaching me something without ever sitting me
down to teach it.
They were showing me what a reader looked like.
My father showed me the contentment of disappearing into a book for hours. My mother showed
me that books could be beautiful objects that opened the door to art, imagination, history, and
wonder.
And somehow, that love became contagious.
I struggled with reading as a child. Yet I grew up to become someone who loves books.
That transformation matters to me because it reminds me of something I wish every child—and
every parent—could understand:
A struggle is not an identity.
A child may struggle to read and still become a lifelong reader.
A child may struggle in school and still grow into a deeply curious, capable adult.
And sometimes, what a child needs most isn’t another reminder of what she can’t do.
Sometimes she needs to see someone enjoying what she is struggling to learn.
She needs an invitation into the world beyond the difficulty.
My father never had to tell me, “You should love reading.”
He simply loved reading himself.
And I watched.
Perhaps that was one of his greatest gifts to me.
He didn’t just teach me how to read.
He showed me why I might someday want to.