Tag Archives: Essay 1

Essay 1: First Encounters

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First Encounter: The Seasons

by Stephen Adams

One of the earliest and most vivid memories of my childhood involves a series of children’s books, but not in the way most might expect. It takes place either around my first year of grade school, or kindergarten, the specifics of which are hazy for me now. Regardless of age and time, I was struggling to learn how to read. It wasn’t so much that my grades were declining but more so a feeling that I was the last of my friends to learn, so my older sister Jenny intervened with the intended goal to “teach me into shape.” She was a relentless but effective tutor, and her lessons relied on four small cardboard cut-out books that were each named after the four season. We started with Autumn, an irony I hadn’t noticed back then, and incrementally proceeded through Winter, Spring, and Summer as my skill level evolved.

Needless to say, my sister’s lessons were incredibly effective, and the whole ordeal taught me a very important lesson. Not only did I learn how to read, but I also learned that books had more to teach us than just their intended subjects. Those cheesy little books that lyricized the seasons in a way that was meant to be entertaining also help lay out the erroneous foundation for a passion that has led me to pursue a career in writing. I look back to the memory of these books often, a sort of symbol for me of perseverance and evolution. The essays I write on a seemingly daily basis are much more than just one clever sentence on a page, at least I hope, and the books that I devour for both my courses and my curiosity are even longer still.

It never occurred to me as a child that those books were specifically made for my age group. I remember being so fascinated with how such a tiny thing could capture so much, like a photograph or a painting, and the fascination only grew with every story I picked up afterwards; namely, A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon, and, as the picture books began to lose their appeal, The Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne. Looking back on the other side of time, it amazes me how smoothly these authors were able to get their works into my hands, works that they crafted for the specific purpose of my parents purchasing and delivering to me. These were the thoughts that came to mind when I heard about this class, and played a big part in me deciding to take it. There’s so much more to children’s books than many of us stop to think, and I am eager to see and learn more about their secrets.

Narrated by Dad

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My father is very into reading aloud. I don’t actually remember how early he started, but for several years he would keep a book in the kitchen, within reach when he’d finished dinner, so he could read a chapter or two when the rest of the family was finishing the meal. He was very skilled at it, and several of the books that I rarely re-read I can still imagine his voice reading aloud. He managed to carry three children under 12 or 13 years old through the Narnia books, A Wrinkle In Time and its sequels, and the entire Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, but although those were the most memorable, I remember that the tradition was very well established by that time.

Before we started those books, I remember him reading some of Grandma’s hand-me-down books, which were mostly animal stories like Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Misty of Chincoteague, and a little yellow-and-red hardback with the cover missing that I think was called Cubby in Wonderland about a bear cub and his mother moving to Yellowstone National Park and having adventures there. I think there was also a book about a dog that was travelling somewhere and got into a lot of trouble with a hunter. There was an illustrated version of The Just So Stories, which caused a few elbow-jabbing fights to determine who got to scoot closest to see the pictured; there was a battered blue hardback of Mother West Wind “Where” Stories, which is similar in form but has very different animals and a sense of place that is more distinctly American, as well as a recurring old bullfrog for Dad to play with a goofy, grumbly, deep voice.

That was one of the memorable things about it. He has a very measured, calm voice, just the right sort of voice for a narrator who has to both keep the attention of three small children and keep them from getting too excited and interrupting; but he also had a lot of fun putting some expression into the dialogue.

Most of the books he read I ended up re-reading later, some of them to practice reading on my own, some of them because I liked them enough to read over and over. This wasn’t a bad thing, on the whole, but it did mean that for most of my favorites I lost that sense of Dad’s voice narrating them–except, for some reason, the first few lines of the book.