Power trip for these times

FOR ALMOST three decades I have had the pleasure of doling out dreams. As a teacher and a librarian, I dealt with the magic of books. There were all the academic reasons to push reading, but I wanted my students and my own children to understand how reading serves as a blueprint for navigating life. My goal was always to find that book that students would remember for the rest of their lives.

I have left my library at 4.30 pm and seen teenagers totally absorbed in reading We Should Hang Out Sometime – Embarrassingly, a True Story by Josh Sundquist. I experienced the awe-stricken faces of my teenagers in the Youth Training Centre (YTC) discovering VS Naipaul’s Miguel Street.

“I didn’t know there were books that were funny,” they told me.

My students in YTC understood that the best means of escape when you are confined is to lose yourself in a book. Even in lockdown, Jahmai used to say, “No one can take away my freedom. I can go anywhere I want. I can travel back in time and read Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre or go to Africa in H Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines.

As an English teacher, I introduced my students to the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Strange Pilgrims with the most enchanting story ever, “Light is Like Water.” We went to India with Arundhati Roy in the God of Small Things. I discovered one of my best friends, Masako Chen, when I introduced students to Oswald Wynd’s The Ginger Tree, and she helped us to understand Japanese culture and the concept of love outside of western culture.

When I became a librarian 16 years ago, my elementary students came to me for lunchtime book clubs so I could read Richard Adam’s Watership Down. I once had a book club for Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. All the girls dropped out leaving the teenage boys to make a careful study of Rhett Butler’s charm.

When I retire in two months, I will remember the joy of finding books powerful enough to cross cultural boundaries. My classes at the International School had students from several different countries. My classes in YTC and prison represented another culture. With the help of the US Embassy, I visited schools throughout TT and saw students respond to nonfiction like my book Wishing for Wings.

It’s a challenge to get to those books right now, but you can take the time to discover that perfect read for when we can make our way to bookstores again. Visit online bookstores and read book reviews from the British-based Guardian, the New York Times, Good Reads, Kirkus Review and amazon.com. Talk to friends about what they’re reading, and if you don’t have friends who are reading, you need to find some.

In the meantime, here are a few recommendations to get you started on your reading journey.

1. Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic by Jeremy Brown – This is an opportunity to learn more about the history of flu pandemics including the Hong Kong Flu of 1968. The search for the cause of the Spanish Flu makes for fascinating reading. There are also interesting discussions about vaccinations for viruses.

2. The Odyssey by Homer – Emily Wilson’s new translation of this Greek epic provides a fresh, new interpretation that re-examines how male translators interpreted the role of females in the epic journey. The audiobook is narrated by actor Claire Danes.

3. Watchers by Dean Koontz – Mystery, horror and action can lure even the most reluctant reader into a book. Many reviews claim that Watchers, which stars a golden retriever, is Koontz’s best book. It’s a challenge to get through the fear this book evokes.

4. Tyndale: The Man Who Gave God an English Voice by David Teems – The story of the man who defied the church and followed his own convictions by translating the Bible into English combines biography, history and religion for an uplifting read.

5. Dying to Better Themselves by Olive Senior – Her fiction from Summer Lightning to Arrival of the Snake Woman, Dancing Lessons and the Pain Tree are powerful reflections of Jamaican culture. In this book, Senior brings her creativity to nonfiction writing. The history of the West Indian workers on the Panama Canal evokes a sense of pride in their monumental accomplishment. It’s an uplifting read.

Reading offers an escape and the power to face adversity. It is a power trip on a whole new level made for these times.