Baby Ray has a dog

My headline sounds odd, doesn't it? Who is Baby Ray and why do you need to know anything about him? My answer is, he was very important to me in my preschool years. My mother taught me to read before I went to kindergarten. She used "The Child's World Primer" published by the Johnson Publishing Company in 1917. Obviously this was not a first edition since I am not quite that old. But it is an important first for me. The first words I learned to read were, "Baby Ray has a dog." I could almost recite the whole book today, including some poems which were meant to be memorized.

I had a unique place in our large family. Since I am the youngest and there are three years between my sister, Ellen, and me, I had several years where I was the only child at home during the school year daytime. I had one-on-one time with my mother and most of it was used reading, singing and learning the words to songs and memorizing poems. I still have both the Baby Ray book and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses" in my library. My favorite one in Stevenson's book was "Windy Nights." I loved the rhythm of the words and was not bothered by the suggestion that it was somewhat spooky. "Whenever the moon and stars are set, Whenever the wind is high, All night long in the dark and wet, A man goes riding by. Late in the night when the fires are out, Why does he gallop and gallop about?"

I'm sharing this memory from early childhood to show why I have spent my complete life (well, hopefully it is not complete yet) with books, words and stories. I did not have Mister Roger's Neighborhood, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, or the Mickey Mouse Club. I had parents that read, older siblings that read, and one sister who was a librarian in the Library of Congress, who would bring home books for Ellen and me that we might not find in the Tenley Town Library near our home in Washington, D.C. I don't remember ever being bored when I was young. I always had a book I wanted to finish reading.

OK, now I am middle age plus or more and I still love to read. I can't always hear the conversations on television shows, but I can always pick up a book and read every word. I no longer have my beloved sister to bring me books, but I have a beloved daughter who is a librarian at the Cottey library and she keeps me supplied with books. Even the ones that portray a lifestyle far different from the one I live keep me informed about this modern world and let me feel a small part of it still.

All of this is an introduction to an essay to stress the importance of reading to and with small children. Many of my readers have no small children in their homes, but you can gift the children in your life with good books and hope that they will either read them or have them read to them. On visits, you can take time to share a book with a grandchild or great-grandchild. For the tiny ones, you can repeat the age old nursery rhymes to them as you rock, or sing the little ditties that you remember from your childhood.

I was shocked recently to hear a 30-something young man who had never heard of Mother Goose. I don't suppose a life lived without the old woman who lived in a shoe, or the Peter who put his wife in a pumpkin shell would be handicapped. But he would not do too well in some quiz shows. It's surprising how many people in all walks of life know those verses by heart and can repeat them instantly.

I am proud of the summer reading programs of the Nevada Library and I am glad there are numerous book clubs in town for the adults, but the best of all worlds is to share the love of books with the people you love. Don't let television replace a warm lap or a bedtime snuggle with a book.

Oh, by the way, Baby Ray also has two cats.