The Book Talk

So Riley loves this book series, The Ranger's Apprentice. It's well written, exciting and perfect for Riley. He's been devouring each book as it has come out.

Maybe I should explain that I have a lifelong habit of buying books that I like. It may be a bad habit, it depends on your perspective; some people disgustedly ask me why we don't use the local library more. I guess the fact is that I love having lots of books, I love being able to go back to them, I like re-reading them, many of them become old friends. I find a house full of books homey and comforting. It's like being surrounded by very intelligent friends with tons of cool ideas.

I have always encouraged my guys to like books too, to read a lot and they have a ton of their own books (to the point where their bedroom is overflowing with them). I have in the past frequently bought them books I thought they'd like, and even if they don't turn out to be interested right then, they usually rediscover them later and read them then.

It's been a common enough thing that if I were to say to one of them, "I got you something today", they'd ask, "is it a book?" first, (with varying degrees of enthusiasm). So they're very used to having their own books. They are probably too used to having lots of books, to the point where they don't realize that having lots of their own books is really a privilege. Riley at least is in the habit of hauling whatever book he's reading back and forth to school with him, we frequently read together at bedtime, books are always available.

In the past 6 months Fremont has lost all of its bookstores except Half Price Books, and there are no other bookstores within an easy reasonable distance, so buying books as a casual habit is being cut short. (This is probably a good thing in terms of saving money, at least.) So when I was out in Half Moon Bay a week or so ago and had a bit of time to spend I went book browsing in some of the bookstores there on Main Street. It's lucky that the independent bookstores there are still surviving, at least for now, though I was told business is difficult. I found the 10th book of Ranger's Apprentice and I had to get it for Riley. I gave it to him later and he was very happy, since he'd been waiting for this one. And he'd been carrying it to school while he's been reading it.

So the other day we were taking Casey to gymnastics and he gasped from the back seat "Riley, what have you done to your book?!!" It came out that Riley had written words in ink on the bottom (the cut edges of the pages) of his new Ranger's Apprentice book,  some obscenities. I couldn't believe it. After we dropped Casey off, I parked, took the book and looked at it and proceeded to completely lose my cool. "Why would you do something like this? What were you thinking??" And he had no good answer. There was no good answer for me, of course. He mumbled something rather incoherent (and this kid is very rarely incoherent) about wanting to mark it as his, nobody else's. When asked why he wouldn't just write his name in the book rather than writing stupid obscenities that any yob could have written, he admitted that he simply hadn't been thinking, he was irritated and bored at school and just did it without thinking. I shouted at him. I yelled mean things. I grounded him. I did not handle it well at all.

Next day, after needing considerable time to cool off as well as time to talk with Paul, find out what had been happening at school that might have affected him and time to think about it all, I sat him down after school and pulled out the abused Ranger's Apprentice book and a big black marker. I also had this book handy:

This book is The Anatomy and Construction Of the Human Figure, by Charles Earl Bradbury. (There's a new reprint of this book out from Dover Books now). It's a fantastic book for anyone wanting to learn how to draw humans. It's a great book. This particular book is one of my most prized books ever. So I sat him down and showed him this book, with its beaten up pink cloth cover, no spine, and the names on the frontispiece:

This book belonged to my dad, bought in Missouri when he was in art school in 1949. He gave this book to me in 1989, when I was in art school. He loved this book and he held onto it through all of his troubled life until he gifted it to me. I explained all of this to Riley as he looked through it with wide eyes. I asked him how old that made the book and without any hesitation he said, "Well, 62 years, but maybe older because who knows how long it was on the shelf for?" 62 years is forever to a 10 year old. I talked to him about how I loved books, they were like friends to me, and how when he'd scribbled bad words on his book, it was like a slap in the face to me, since I'd gotten him that book specially, I knew he wanted to have it and read it so much.

I picked up his Ranger's Apprentice book and said, "This is a really nice hardbound book, and I know you like these books. It could last at least as long as my dad's book. You might not have this in 62 years, but someone else might have found it and want to read it as much as you did. Do you want them to have this book with these words scribbled on it in 62 years?" He looked at me quickly and his eyes were big and full of tears (though he'd hate for anyone to know that). I showed him the flat side of the big black marker and showed him how to black out the words on the edge. He was really very nice the rest of the day. But he's still grounded.

Luckily he's got plenty of books to read while he's grounded, and a silly cat to keep him company.